Sometimes the most whole people are those who come from the most broken circumstances.

Though adversity is the fertile soil in which the human spirit best grows, we loathe it still. I do not see how it can be otherwise, for no rational being seeks out pain and misfortune. Still, I cannot help but wonder if it is not somehow wrong to enjoy the fruit but curse the tree.

We do not succeed in spite of our obstacles and challenges. We succeed precisely because of them.

What a peculiar alchemist is time—transforming painful experiences into comedy.

I believe that, for the most part, we don't succeed in spite of our hardships but precisely because of them.

I have learned a great truth of life. We do not succeed in spite of our challenges and difficulties, but rather, precisely because of them.

Usually life's greatest gifts come wrapped in adversity.

Faith is not for overcoming obstacles; it is for experiencing them—all the way through!

I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.

All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain.

The heroic deeds of those great worthies do not comfort the church so much as their falls and bruises do.

Many persecuted believers have thrived in the desert of prison. Perpetua, a third-century Christian who was imprisoned and martyred for her faith, said of her prison cell: "The dungeon became to me as it were a palace, so that I preferred being there to being elsewhere." Do not be fearful of dry times in your spiritual life. Tap into the Bridegroom, seeking only His living water and you will thrive.