If we think of life as a kind of Olympic games, some of life's crises are sprints. They require maximum emotional concentration for a short time. Then they are over, and life returns to normal. But other crises are distance events. They ask us to maintain our concentration over a much longer period of time, and that can be a lot harder.

God didn't let Job suffer because he lacked love, but because he did love, in order to bring Job to the point of encountering God face to face, which is humanity's supreme happiness. Job's suffering hollowed out a big space in him so that God and joy could fill it.

If there's one thing I'd say to anyone out there, is that if you're in this game, it's a rollercoaster. There's a lot of ups and downs.

The upside of a downward spiral into despair and defeat in young adulthood is that pretty early on, I was forced to face not only the foolish things I had done but also the stark realization that there was likely no end to what I was capable of doing.

That Religion is not devotion, but work and suffering for the love of God; this is the true doctrine of Mystics.

In terms of soul work, we dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us.

Yes, there was an element of abstraction and unreality in misfortune. But when an abstraction starts to kill you, you have to get to work on it.

circumstances—not necessarily in holiness and radiant light, but often in confusion among people with deep problems.

Conflict with others is one of God's mysterious, counterintuitive ways of rescuing us from ourselves. God uses it to get us where he wants to take us before we die. Because we don't usually think that trials can be used in such a positive way, this truth catches us by surprise. But it shouldn't.

God is simply taking you where you do not want to go to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own.

If you choose to face conflict head on, it is full of risks and the potential for great hurt, but it can also be redemptive.

Along with that, the Bible continually reminds us that God sends the uncomfortable grace of trial not to crush or discourage us, but to mature and refine us. As we are realistic about difficulty, that needs to be our hope.