Pain and trials are almost constant companions, but never enemies. They drive me into His sovereign arms. There He takes my disappointments and works everything together for good.

Trace, the lengths you've gone to in taking care of us is nothing short of heroic. You are a blessed miracle from God, you and your men. You saved us and now you care for us. It's the Bible's very definition of a Christian.~ Deb

he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act.

He felt safe in the oak tree's presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength.

He saw for the first time that he had never known fear because, against any disaster, he had held the omnipotent cure of being able to act.

She caught herself thinking: She's functioning well in an emergency, I'll be all right with her—and realized that she was thinking of herself.

The American story has never been about things coming easy. It has been about rising to the moment when the moment is hard. About rejecting panicked division for purposeful unity. About seeing a mountaintop from the deepest valley. That is why we remember that some of the most famous words ever spoken by an American came from a president who took office in a time of turmoil: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

It [is] that courage that Africa most desperately needs.

As she spoke, her voice never wavered; it was the voice of someone who has forced a larger meaning out of tragedy. Or

You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations - to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless.

Sometimes you were just screwed, and the best you could do was have a stiff drink—and light up a cigarette.

When we've been told we're not ready," I said, "or that we shouldn't try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can.