It often feels so quiet, lonely, and miserable in those situations, it's easy to lose perspective.
But Rav Itamar Schwartz of Bilvavi offered an interesting true story about the great Torah influencer, Rav Nissim Yagen of blessed memory [boldface & italics mine]:
(bilvavi.net/back-issues/eng/Bilvavi_275_Vayechi_Suffering_5783.pdf)
One of the mashpiim [influencers] in Eretz Yisrael, Rav Nissim Yagen ztz”l, who had inspired many baalei teshuvah with all his speeches, was niftar [passed away] in the prime of his life.
He came to a family member in his dream and said,
"All the shiurim and zikuy harabim (benefiting the masses) which I did, which was all done with mesirus nefesh, didn’t get me into Gan Eden.
"Only the final period of suffering in my life, which I went through with bitachon in Hashem, is what enabled me to get into Gan Eden.
"That’s when I couldn’t do anything and something else opened in my heart.
"Until then, everything was all external.
The last illness is what opened my heart."
This is astounding, if you know who Rav Nissim Yagen was, whose shiurim are being listened to by many until today.
He had done so much, yet all of that was only inspiration and it wasn’t yet the point of truth for him.
It was the suffering at the end of his life which brought him to that point of truth and which opened his heart.
(Of course, suffering itself is not a free ticket to Gan Eden, unless a person grows from it. There are those who suffer and gain nothing from it because they didn’t grow from it; their hearts didn’t open from it.)
For Rav Nissim Yagen, all of his zikuy rabim was a preparation for his suffering, and it was the suffering which opened his heart and brought him to Gan Eden.
But sometimes no end is in sight.
And sometimes, it seems like the person remains destined to suffer in this particular way — sort of like someone born with a missing limb or an amputee does not realistically expect to grow a brand-new limb.
No one expects a child born with Downs or some other developmental disorder to one day be "cured."
And I believe there is emotional suffering (or challenges, if you will) that a person seems destined to wrestle with — whether it's something within themselves or an essential relationship that simply will never be healthy, like a parent-child relationship or a marriage.
And others sometimes even dismiss their suffering AND — even worse — their victories.
But that's not right.
It's absolutely 100% NOT right.
Hashem cares VERY much about how you behave in the private, painful, miserable moments.
That's where your greatest accomplishments can happen.