Anne Lamott:

Domestic pain can be searing, and it is usually what does us in.  It's almost indigestible: death, divorce, old age, drugs; brain-damaged children, violence, senility, unfaithfulness.  Good luck with figuring it out.  It unfolds, and you experience it, and it is so horrible and endless that you could almost give up a dozen times.  But grace can be the experience of a second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on.

Help, Thanks, Wow, p. 47