This is what tension feels like. The tension of being left behind.

It almost seems as though some very intentional, finely tuned plot against us intends to rob us of who we are in Christ.

Every knock is a boost.

There are two kinds of suffering in this life. That which pursues us and that which we doggedly pursue.

Because in life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with them. Stop failing backward and start failing forward!

You may feel singled out when adversity enters your life. You shake your head and wonder, 'Why me?'

I think life is perverse. It can be beautiful, but it won't.

somehow we have overlooked the fact this treasured called the heart can also be broken, has been broken, and now lies in pieces down under the surface. When it comes to habits we cannot quit or patterns we cannot stop, anger that flies out of nowhere, fears we cannot overcome, or weaknesses we hate to admit--much of what troubles us comes out of the broken places in our hearts crying out for relief. Jesus speaks as if we are all brokenhearted. We would do well to trust His perspective on this.

It has been said that the lives of the early Christians consisted of persecution above ground and prayer below ground.

And yet, notwithstanding all these continual persecutions and horrible punishments, the Church daily increased, deeply rooted in the doctrine of the apostles and of men apostolical, and watered plentously with the blood of saints.

Rawlins was carried again to Cardiff, to a loathsome prison in the town, called Cockmarel, where he passed his time in prayer, and in the singing of Psalms.

Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.