Americans are nervous; Americans are restless; and what troubles me the most is that Americans are uncharacteristically pessimistic.

He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace.

Sometimes God allows what he hates to accomplish what he loves.

I had to be healed of my desire to be healed.

Anyone who takes the Bible seriously agrees that God hates suffering. Jesus spent most of his time relieving it. But when being healed becomes the only goal - 'I'm not letting go until I get what I want' - it's a problem.

We dare not think that God is absent or daydreaming. The do nothing God...He's not tucked away in some far corner of the universe, uncaring, unfeeling, unthinking, uninvolved. Count on it, God intrudes in glorious and myriad ways.

Suffering is arguably God's choicest tool in shaping the character of Christ in us.