Have you read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning?  A classic study of human resilience, Search for Meaning explores how people responded to the vicissitudes of Auschwitz, that is, how, despite the horrific conditions of their lives, they nonetheless sought to find meaning.  Frankl's point is that regardless of one's condition, she will seek to understand and pursue a greater significance, purpose, or meaning.
     Frankl's thesis says much about who human beings are.  Even if God does not exist, or even if God seems absent, people will try to make sense of their existence.  Why?  We have two options.  One, we can say that humans developed a sense of meaning in order to make their lives, well, meaningful.  This assumes, however, that people were aware of the notion of meaning before hand.  How could they know it was important?  Two, we can suggest that humans have been designed with purpose, and to therefore seek purpose. This of course demands that we posit the idea of God.  Random beings defy explanation; created beings necessitate it.
     Although we recoil at the issues that Auschwitz raises about the goodness of God, we also must realize that we cannot have it both ways.  If transcendent moral structure exists, however difficult its presence makes finding an explanation for pain, it nonetheless is superior to trying to find meaning without one.  If there is no transcendent moral structure, we are left with only ourselves, our random and indecipherable selves, to explain what we cannot legitimately seek to understand, anyway.