Believe your pain.' This awful bear hug is no mistake. Nothing that disturbs you is. Remember all along that there is no embrace in this world that won't finally unclasp.

And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal--carries the cross of the redeemer--not in the bright moments of his tribe's great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair.

How can we who are so weak in ourselves, so inferior in power to the enemies confronting us, bear up under our trials which are so numerous, so protracted, so crushing? We could not, and therefore Divine grace has provided for us an all-sufficient Helper. Without His aid we had long since succumbed, mastered by our trials. Hope looks forward to the Glory to come; in the weary interval of waiting, the Spirit supports our poor hearts and keeps grace alive within us.

It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.

If there is one thing you can count on in your life, it's that your path will not always be easy.

Hardships often prepare ordinary people for extraordinary destiny. —C. S. LEWIS

The day people around me stop questioning my character is the day my character begins to grow vulnerable.

I have so many things to work on, and so many ways that I fail. But that's what grace is all about. And I constantly wake up every morning trying to get better, trying to improve, trying to walk closer to God.

Some of my worst moments in football have been losing semi-finals, the Barcelona game in 2009 probably more than most. But you have to take it and bounce back.

I had become so accustomed to succeeding that I no longer even remembered what it was like to fail.

Years ago I watched my 1st wife suffer through cancer and she went to be with Jesus.

It is by suffering that human beings become angels.