When we wait to live life until things are the way we think they should be, we will be "waiting" all of our lives. The point of the above statement is that our lives are full of obstacles that we constantly have to clear or hurdle. My mother's favorite quote (I know it by heart because I've heard it all of my life) is:

"If God had meant Earth to be a flowery bed of roses,
He wouldn't have made Heaven".

If we wait until things are better, more things will come along, and there we go again. We aren't supposed to have it perfect here on Earth. As I've said in some of my other divorce recovery pages, we are here to learn and grow. We don't learn as much when everything is going well in our lives; its from the pain, the obstacles, the problems, the mistakes and the tragedies that we can learn and grow the most. Whether or not we do learn is absolutely up to us.
I don't believe that God punishes us when we go through bad times. Humans beings are given the gift of choice. We can choose the path we want to travel (within certain boundaries), and we often have to suffer the consequences of our choices. What God expects of us is to learn from our mistakes and move on to different tasks and lessons. We have to constantly strive to become a better person.
Also, there are many things that we have no control over whatsoever. We can't make a person keep on loving us. We have to deal with things in the best way we know how. In life, we will encounter death, unfairness, losses, and other unpleasant happenings. Some of the things that happen to us are not a result of what we do or what we are. It is how we deal with them that matters.
Believe that.

As the saying goes, "Life Happens!"
Try to live it the best that you can.