C. S. Lewis wrote: “My own experience is something like this. I am progressing along the path of life… when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in a newspaper that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed… then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times… I remind myself that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God’s grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn my whole nature leaps back [again]… Thus the terrible necessity of [our trials and] tribulations is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me.”

Source: Men’s Devotional Bible, p.183