What should be the military's most careful duty, these families say, has for them been a painful ordeal.

In any event, both the Leffelmans and the lenders appear to have been going through a painful ordeal.

The culture had provided some of the rituals and agents needed to support me through these painful ordeals.

The mere contact had nearly burned her; if she'd really gripped the box, it would have been a painful ordeal.

In real life, a broken marriage is still a painful and damaging ordeal.

The valley had the look of a dying creature whose death had been a long and painful ordeal.

For someone of his extreme sensitivity, it was a painful ordeal.

It is also a country which has had to suffer long and painful ordeals since independence, gained in 1953.

Steeling himself for the painful ordeal, Phil started to rise.

At the very end of the program, all the recruits were shut into a room and tear-gassed - a terribly painful ordeal.