The pain was on the surface, so it took all his will to reach upward. But maybe that's what God asked of man. To reach upward even when it's hard.

After a while, he went back to his task; he decided that pain was not a valid reason for stopping.

The single most significant factor, he realized, was a sense of future vision—the impelling conviction of those who were to survive that they had a mission to perform, some important work left to do.1 Survivors of POW camps in Vietnam and elsewhere have reported similar experiences: a compelling, future-oriented vision is the primary force that kept many of them alive.

You cannot change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails to always reach your destination." So it is that when disasters occur in our lives and we go within to discover our inner strength or to seek discernment, we have choices to continue in the same direction the storm of life has paved for us, or adjust our sail and get back on track to what we believe and know to be our path in life.

The purpose exceeds the pain.

Even a broken tree can bear fruit

Grow as a palm-tree on God's Mount Zion; howbeit shaken with winds, yet the root is fast.

Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.

Great people aren't those who are happy at times of convienience and content, but of how they are in times of catastrophy and controversy.

Nothing in his story glosses over the presence of evil. Quite the contrary. Bloodstains, tearstains are everywhere. Joseph's heart was rubbed raw against the rocks of disloyalty and miscarried justice. Yet time and time again God redeemed the pain. The torn robe became a royal one. The pit became a palace. The broken family grew old together. The very acts intended to destroy God's servant turned out to strengthen him.

Don't get sucked into short-term thinking. Your struggles will not last forever, but you will.

Preparation is rarely easy and never beautiful.