Suffering, Endurance, Character, Hope

As long as I am posting a few quotes, I might as well post this one:
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
-Romans 5:1-5 (NRSV)

Don't let the word boast throw you off. In this case it means to take pride in, or to be thankful for.It is not a word used much in the context of these verses, but the meaning here is still clear.I am always inspired by the complexity of life and the interconnectedness of it. In the natural world, ecologically speaking, I have pointed out connections before by saying the foot bone is connected to the leg bone.... Here is an example of connectedness in a spiritual sense. Suffering, mental or physical, produces endurance, which produces character, and character produces hope. I have never known anyone with character (as I define it) that was not hopeful. Character makes a person do the right thing even when to all appearances there seems to be little hope of a positive outcome.
All of us suffer. It is part of the human condition (but not human alone-animals suffer both mentally and physically). The important thing is how we react to it. Will it build up character or produce bitterness or hatefulness? The plain fact is that some suffer more than others. Is this because they have further to go to build character? I think not. I say it is completely random, the luck of the draw. Just as God does not care how much money we have because he looks on the heart, he is more interested in the effect suffering has on the heart than the suffering itself. This is not to say that He does not care about suffering, because He does. He provides endurance or whatever spiritual quality is needed, or a way to escape if the suffering becomes too much.
I do not believe everything happens for a reason. I believe in what I see, which is chaos for the most part. But more on that another time.