Something only God can do. He both broke and filled my heart at the same time. I still don't understand that.

I quit screaming at God a long time ago, 'cause I reckon he knows a thing or two about hurt.

There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

Don't pretend to understand all of what happened. But I do know this—this right here is just prelude. Dress rehearsal. The intro. One of these days each one of us is going to get called up and given the chance to join our voices in a song we've never heard, yet one we've known our whole lives. "My dad

Even if you attempt to ignore the loss, the emotional experience of it is implanted in your heart and mind, and no eraser will remove it.

She had the feeling that somehow, in the very far-off places, perhaps even in far-off ages, there would be a meaning found to all sorrow and an answer too fair and wonderful to be as yet understood.

However, I am fairly confident that the extent of our eschatological transfiguration will be much more thoroughgoing than many of us suspect and that even our biblical language will literally prove infinitely inadequate to the task of describing the earthly reality that will have been transformed or divinized into our heavenly .

In principle this implies something else, something harder to grasp, namely, that his whole suffering—a suffering that goes to the utter limits—follows from and actually expresses his eternal, triune joy.

But then, in the midst of exile, there came promises of return, of a continuation of the interrupted history. There arose a vision of a mysterious person who would expiate the people's guilt on their behalf. And now Jesus' knowledge reaches beyond the "house left desolate", for he goes on: "You will not see me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not perfect, even when He has let you down and disappointed you by permitting bad luck and sickness and cruelty in His world, and permitting some of those things to happen to you? Can you learn to love and forgive Him despite His limitations, as Job does, and as you once learned to forgive and love your parents even though they were not as wise, as strong, or as perfect as you needed them to be?

If a human artist or employer made children suffer so that something immensely impressive or valuable could come to pass, we would put him in prison. Why then should we excuse God for causing such undeserved pain, no matter how wonderful the ultimate result may be?

through the lives and souls of specific individuals. The truth is, life is unfair, and we would do well to come to terms with that fact.