Many people in the throes of suffering, disappointment, and despair, feel utterly stuck in their circumstances. They see no hope beyond their day-to-day drudgery of disability routines; but when hurting families place themselves under the shower of God's mercy, suddenly the clouds part. They realize there's hope, life, and even joy beyond their suffering.

We're not the paragons of virtue that we'd all like to think we are. And so, to shatter that myth, God will use suffering to expose the stuff of which we're made.

True, God hates Alzheimer's, spinal cord injury, mental illness, autism, and the rest (these conditions are all symptoms of the Fall). Yet he permits these things to accomplish something far more precious in our lives: patience, endurance, compassion for others who hurt, and refined faith and trust in God, to name a few.

Even in my despair, I knew in a vague way that the Bible held hope for me in its pages. I just didn't know where to begin.

The truths of the Bible are never just abstract concepts; they're always related to real people.

What an encouragement to realize that God has reserved you and me for a special task in His great work. In His hands we're not only useful, but priceless.

Every time we go to sleep, it's a rehearsal of the day when our eyes will ultimately close and we wake up on the side of eternity.