BARBARA VOITEL: I lost both legs; I had strokes, blood clots to the heart and lungs.

JUDY VALENTE (to Daniel Kaulback): What did the accident do to you?

DANIEL KAULBACK: It paralyzed me from the chest down.

VALENTE: The catastrophic things that happen to people: a 12-year-old girl suffers a stroke; a four-year-old goes into toxic shock; a high school football player is paralyzed during a game.

ROCKY CLARK: I got tackled. Went down on my left side, hit my head.

VALENTE: Helen Betenbaugh, an Episcopal priest, has been asking: why does God let it happen? A childhood polio victim, she later suffered a spinal fracture. When she was 34, and the mother of two small children, her condition worsened, and she learned she would be in a wheelchair the rest of her life.

HELEN BETENBAUGH: It's loss, it's loss, it's loss. It's loss of movement, it's loss of possibility for activity. It meant "no" to so many things. Where's the "yes," God? Just show me where the "yes" is.

VALENTE: A few years ago, Helen began to write a prayer, about human affliction. What came out was a torrent of words -- a five-page lament on disability. With painful questions.

MS. BETENBAUGH (reading from poem "Creating God"): You made the finest sands; fields of green grass cool on the soles of our bare feet on a hot summer's day and streams to hike alongside with loved ones. Today, thousands were born without feet or legs. Or with legs so twisted or spastic that they would never walk on them. Thousands more lost the use of theirs because of injury or disease And it was evening and morning of another day. Did you call this good?

VALENTE: To many people of faith -- especially the disabled -- it is a mystery. How can the loving, omnipotent God they believe in condemn them to a life of pain and suffering?

BRUCE ASTARITA: Not many minutes go by when you're not thinking of God. And you curse him in one breath and when you exhale you might praise him.

REVEREND DAVID KYLLO (Chaplain, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago): It's an emotional and social crisis, but also very much a spiritual crisis. They're wondering, where is God?; what is God to me during this time? Sometimes the question, why did God do this to me. But that's not so much the big issue anymore. They want to know where God is.

This is the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Once a week, a Catholic mass is held for families and the patients, crippled or brain damaged by disease or trauma. David Kyllo is the chaplain.

REVEREND KYLLO: Anger is a big issue. People oftentimes say, I'm sorry, I'm angry with God. I apologize for that. My question back to them would be, "Why not be angry with God?" God can certainly take it. If this God ... created us and our emotions and our feelings and everything, that's okay to express it. And oftentimes that's a good letdown for the patients.

MS. BETENBAUGH: One of the things we've done a very poor job of in the church is allowing anger. In fact, celebrating anger. I think a lot of it's out of fear of God. That, if the person was zapped to start with, it's a punishment from God. Then, to confront God, to be angry at God, is to risk further zapping.

(reading from poem): What, for Christ's sake, would it take for you to hear us? We are yours, yet we see you distant, irresponsible. We see you washing your hands of us just as Pilate washed his hands of your son.

ERIC LIPP: I was quite angry when I first got to the Rehabilitation Institute. I was quite upset. It was difficult to pull through that.

VALENTE: Eric Lipp is doing pool therapy, ten months after he came out of surgery -- a quadraplegic.

MR. LIPP: When I woke up that day, I was in such excruciating pain that there was really nothing that could take it away. The only thing that could relieve it, or make me feel better, was looking toward God to give me strength.

VALENTE: Today, Eric walks with a cane. The disease, which he inherited from his mother, killed her at the age of 44.

MR. LIPP: Keeping the faith is what will get you through. It's the only thing you have to fight disease. Modern medicine is good, but its not the all being.

VALENTE: Allen Heinemann, a rehabilitation psychologist, has studied the short-term effects of disability on a patient's spiritual life -- in particular, the often-asked question: "Why me?"

DR. ALLEN HEINEMANN (Rehabilitation Psychologist): The major conclusion we came to is that difficulty in resolving that question is the big issue. If you stay stuck on why did this happen, why did God do this to me, those are the people who are gonna have difficulties down the road.