Count it all joy…when you fall into various trials (JAMES 1:2).

Trials are not meant to defeat you. They are meant to be defeated.

Sometimes God's way of answering prayer is not by removing the pressure, but by increasing your strength to bear it.

Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is proof.

We mustn't allow our circumstances and disappointments to become the excuse for the choices we make in life. God is greater than all of that, and He can bring beauty out of ashes. Our trials come, Augustine said, "to prove us and to improve us.

Suffering in and of itself does not lead a person into a deeper relationship with God. As with those who hear the word of God yet do not respond to it with faith, suffering divorced from faith and hope will actually embitter us as our hearts grow harder rather than softer toward God. In other words, suffering will either make us run to God or away from Him. In the midst of trials, we must ask ourselves, "Is this trial making me bitter and callous, or is it making me loving and gentle?

My weakness, that is, my quadriplegia, is my greatest asset because it forces me into the arms of Christ every single morning when I get up.

The moment an ill can be patiently handled, it is disarmed of its poison, though not of its pain.

If you've ever been in a position in your life where you just can't take any more, you just have to get through the next second, and the next second after that.

Perseverance is a positive, active characteristic.

I have always been a very positive person and tried to bring the positives from the hardest moments.

As a 16-year-old, I was 5-foot-5 and maybe 145 pounds. It was hard to believe a guy like that was going to make it to the big leagues.