To wish to forget the hope because it wasn't realized, to try to cleanse your mind of the beautiful dream because it didn't come true, is to miss out on lie altogether, because life is designed to be lived in an alternation of hours of sunlight and hours of darkness.

Pain is the price we pay for being alive. Dead cells—our hair, our fingernails—can't feel pain; they cannot feel anything. When we understand that, our question will change from, "Why do we have to feel pain?" to "What do we do with our pain so that it becomes meaningful and not just pointless empty suffering?

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.

How many times do you have to get hit over the head until you figure out who's hitting you.

Only in a world where faith is difficult can faith exist.

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.

Archbishop Tutu once explained to me that suffering can either embitter us or ennoble us, and it tends to ennoble us if we are able to make meaning out of our suffering and use it for the benefit of others.

Whenever something comes into our life that hurts us, we do the decidin'—do I let this work for my good, as God intended, or do I let bitterness grow like a bothersome canker sore in my soul?

It can make us stronger, more compassionate, more understanding—more like Jesus—if we allow it to. And the more clutter we get rid of in our life here—the more we will be able to enjoy heaven—when we get there. So, pain can have a purpose.

I think that is why—why God allows hard things in life. To prepare us. To knock off rough edges—pride, bias, envy, selfishness—so that when we get to heaven we will be more in tune—more able to enjoy the beautiful things we'll find there. Maybe that's what the rewards will be. A deeper appreciation of what we are given—what we are a part of.

Painful experiences can be used to better prepare us for heaven. You see, if we let it, even pain can shape us—make us better people—get rid of some of the ugly parts of our humanity.

Today, as she sat in her room following prayer, she reflected on how their numbers had grown in a way they could not have if they had all remained in Jerusalem. This time Abigail allowed herself to give silent voice to her deepest questions. Was this why, Lord? Was Stephen the seed that, when planted in the ground, bore fruit? Did you use his death to scatter us for your purposes?