If we were never depressed, we would not be alive—only material things don't suffer depression. If human beings were not capable of depression, we would have no capacity for happiness and exaltation.

They should be encouraged to bring all of who they are and what they know into each class. By welcoming the whole student into our classes, unfamiliar aspects of who they are and what they care about suddenly come into view. What are the heartfelt questions they struggle with? Are they too scared to acknowledge the hopes and aspirations they harbor for their lives and for this world?

I've accepted the fact that I'm going to be a sad man for the rest of my life because I get calls all the time of the saddest things that are happening in the church.

Here's the question: Will we allow the things that break God's heart to break our hearts too? It'll mean more tears, more listening. It may even be the reason why so many of us struggle with our own personal burdens and heartaches - God is allowing us to feel the pain, to be weak and broken so that our prayers have power.

Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I cannot bear to watch the boy die!” And as she sat nearby, she lifted up her voice and wept.

So he asked the officials of Pharaoh who were in custody with him in his master’s house, “Why are your faces so downcast today?”

When the portions were served to them from Joseph’s table, Benjamin’s portion was five times larger than any of the others. So they feasted and drank freely with Joseph.

Then the whole congregation lifted up their voices and cried out, and that night the people wept.

And the Israelites grieved for their brothers, the Benjamites, and said, “Today a tribe is cut off from Israel.

When they reached the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant, “Come, let us go back, or my father will stop worrying about the donkeys and start worrying about us.”

When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.

The elders of his household stood beside him to help him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat anything with them.