The awful, or rather the full of awe, grace of God which imparts wisdom comes at a very steep price.
There are times in life when we cling to the mountain face with storms raging where, sometimes, are from our own doing, and in other times, they are not.
In these times, we endure because there is nothing else we can do. We can't go forward and we can't fall back. We just endure and wait for the storm to subside. We survive.
And in these experiences, the burned wisdom is written on to our souls. And in the burning, the things that don't matter are burned away leaving knowledge with clarity on what does.