Why does God allow His children to suffer?

Often times, when people are wondering whether or not there is a God; they reason that if there were a God who truly did love His children that there would be no suffering in the world. They think that a kind, just, and merciful God would not allow His own children who he loves to feel sorrow, pain, and sadness. However, there is a God who allows His children to experience hardship even though He loves them. Romans Chapter 5 verses 3 and 4 help explain the reasons that our God allows us to suffer. The passage reads, “And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope:”. Our Heavenly Father wants us to learn and to grow, and there are something that we cannot learn without trials, challenges, and hardships. Because God loves us and wants us to be able to learn and grow so that we may return to His presence and live with Him again He allows us to experience difficult challenges. We need the patience, experience, and hope that our trials allow us to gain. Without these tribulations we would not be able to learn. Heavenly Father knows what each of us needs to learn individually, so He provides us with unique and individual opportunities to experience hardship so that we can learn exactly what He would have us know. However, during each hardship it is up to us to use our agency to learn and grow from that experience. We can choose to allow our tribulations to make us angry and bitter or we can choose to allow them to teach us patience, experience, and hope. We cannot choose our circumstances, but we have the complete ability to choose how we react to them. I testify that trials are a part of God’s Plan of Happiness. He allows us to experience them because He loves us and they will ultimately be for our benefit.