That's the essence of our faith. It's living with hope in the face of mystery. We live a life of faith completely full of hope, staring mystery right in the face. You can't have one without the other. Your faith won't survive without hope, and hope won't survive without the realization that there are mysteries that will not be answered. If you can embrace both, you can have a vibrant faith.

Believe that there is a purpose in your pain.

We try to bargain with God...I will follow you but don't touch my children, or my husband, don't give me cancer...We are afraid our surrender to God will unleash evil. But evil will come, because evil will come. We live in a broken world.

In the United States, if one family out of every four churches adopted a child, there would be no orphans in the country

When you are wanting to comfort someone in their grief take the words 'at least' out of your vocabulary. In saying them you minimise someone else's pain...Don't take someone else's grief and try to put it in a box that YOU can manage. Learn to truly grieve with others for as long as it may take.

An untested faith is an unreliable faith.

That's the essence of our faith. It's living with hope in the face of mystery. We live a life of faith completely full of hope, staring mystery right in the face. You can't have one without the other. Your faith won't survive without hope, and hope won't survive without the realization that there are mysteries that will not be answered. If you can embrace both, you can have a vibrant faith.