When you have His joy in your heart, it doesn't necessarily mean your pain or hurt will be taken away. It means you'll be able to bear it.

It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value.

We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them.

It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us learn empathy and compassion and discover our soul.

God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.

Grace interpreted as a principle, pecca fortiter as a principle, grace at a low cost, is in the last resort simply a new law, which brings neither help nor freedom. Grace as a living word, pecca fortiter as our comfort in tribulation and as a summons to discipleship, costly grace is the only pure grace, which really forgives sins and gives freedom to the sinner.

Only when we have felt the terror of the matter, can we recognize the incomparable kindness. God comes into the very midst of evil and death, and judges the evil in us and in the world. And by judging us, God cleanses and sanctifies us, comes to us with grace and love…. God wants to always be with us, wherever we may be—in our sin, suffering, and death. We are no longer alone; God is with us.6 "The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst

God answers the mess of life with one word: Grace.

Battles are won in the trenches, in the grit and grime of courageous determination; they are won day by day in the arena of life.

Rise to the occassion which is life!

God seldom calls us for an easier life, but always calls us to know more of him and drink more deeply of His sustaining grace.

Life is so damned hard, so damned hard... It just hurts people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can't be hurt ever any more. That's the last and worst thing it does.