Jesus can turn loss into glory.

A. W. Tozer, who said, "It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.

When you start to avoid what hurts you, what happens? Over time, your spiritual side grows stronger. And your selfish side starts to die.

One must learn to love, and go through a good deal of suffering to get to it, and the journey is always towards the other soul.

What we cannot change, we must endure without bitterness.

It's those little nicks and dents and imperfections of spirit that allow us to flow out into a thirsty world. It's our scars that allow us to relate to the scars of others, our suffering that connects us to others who suffer.

There is a moth in a cocoon outside the window... [It] has labored for hours... Inside the darkness, does it know why it must struggle? Somewhere in the mass of cells and neurons that make up its tiny body, is it aware that the struggle is God's way of pumping fluid into its wings? If not for the struggle, it would come into the world with a swollen body and flightless wings. It would be a creature without strength, unable to fulfill its purpose.

We all have scars. It's when you're honest about them that you find the people who will love you in spite of your nicks and dents. Perhaps even because of them. The people who don't? Those people aren't the ones for you.

In my multifold years of life, I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don't intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

And the pilgrim goes on sorrowful yet always rejoicing - sorrowful because it is so far off and the road so long. Hopeful as he looks up to the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening glow and he thinks of two old sayings that he heard long ago - the one is: "Much strife must be striven Much suffering must be suffered Much prayer must be prayed And then the end will be peace.

Personally I believe that the adversities one meets with in the ordinary course of life do us as much good as harm. The very complaint that makes one ill today, overwhelming one with discouragement, that same thing - once the disease has passed off - gives us the energy to get up and to want to be completely recovered tomorrow.