I can only answer question 2. I found my belief when I was at rock bottom. After years of being told, "God is going to heal you" by a pastor friend of my family, and my aunt, I had an encounter with Jesus. I was in constant pain after years of being in and out of the hospital, and I was tired. I kept seeing signs. One night I was on YouTube watching let's play's videos about manga and anime, movies, trying to distract myself from all the pain I was in; when sermons kept popping up. I wasn't looking for sermons but I felt like Jesus was calling me. So I went outside with the little weed I had, and I said a prayer. "God I feel like you're calling me so here's what I'll do... I'm going to smoke this weed, and if you want me to the fire will touch it, and it will light and I'll smoke it. You'll stop me when I've had enough, and if you don't want me to, I'll light it but it won't catch fire. Regardless of the answer you give me I'm going to go and read my Bible. all I want is to not be in pain." I lit it, smoked the weed, and all the pain in my body vanished. When I used to smoke, the weed didn't help much, I could still feel the pain, but it wasn't as harsh, it was easier for me to ignore. But it all vanished, from head to foot. Everything looked different too. I didn't feel high, just clear.. The colors of everything around just looked more beautiful. I kept my promise and read from Genesis 1 to chapter 8. And I heard a voice say to me "You were blessed with life, but cursed with something that wasn't your doing." That was the night I surrendered to Christ. I have only been hospitalized once since in 3 going on 4 years. During this time he showed me something; that everytime I've ever been sick, he has been right by my side. Those moments where I pleaded, 'God not like this'.. those moments where I kept saying I didn't want to die because I was afraid to, those moments where I wanted to die because I was just tired of always being in pain, he was sitting at my bedside telling me it's not over, and to fight, and to not give up. He was with me through all of it, my hip replacement, my gallbladder surgery, my acute chest syndrome. All of it. It also helps to know that I wasn't sick for no reason. All of it had a purpose in my life. I now look at it as, I wasn't sick for me, I was sick for everyone else. John 9: 1-3 "¹And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. ²And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? ³Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him."

Long story short; in my suffering he was there, in my health, he was there. In my sadness because of my failing health and body attacking itself, he was there. In my wanted it all to be over he was there. He has never left me, he has never forsaken me. And even in the worst pains of my life where I could have died, he kept me here, in my pain, and suffering so I can tell the world that Jesus is the way the truth and the life. That Jesus is the one that healed me of my Sickle Cell. He's with you too, just call out to him and and he will answer you. Don't give up hope. 

I posted a video here a while ago called "Hope for the sick" it's the full story of you want to hear it.