Like all good citizens, the elderly and people with disabilities want to eradicate waste and fraud from government, but helping people with special needs meet their basic needs doesn’t fit this description.

In the Christian faith, God really puts suffering front and center. He doesn't get squeamish about it.

I was in every club and extra-curricular activity at high school, and I was in the National Honor Society.

Programs, systems and methods sit well in the ivory towers of monasteries or in the wooden arms of icons. Head knowledge comes from the pages of a theology text. But the invitation to know God - truly know Him - is always an invitation to suffer. Not to suffer alone, but to suffer with Him.

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.

Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.

Like art, like music, like so many other disciplines, prayer can only be appreciated when you actually spend time in it. Spending time with the Master will elevate your thinking. The more you pray, the more will be revealed. You will appreciate not only the greatness of prayer, but the greatness of God.