O God, take all our sorrows and use them to show us the nature of our joy.

The trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with small doses of Christianity which keep us from catching the real thing.

I believe passionately that Christianity is a way of life, not a theological system with which one must be in intellectual agreement. I feel that Christ would admit into discipleship anyone who sincerely desired to follow him, and allow that disciple to make his creed out of his experience; to listen, to consider, to pray, to follow, and ultimately to believe only those convictions about which the experience of fellowship made him sure.

I am writing for the Christian agnostic, by which I mean a person who is immensely attracted to Christ and who seeks to show his spirit, to meet the challenges, hardships, and sorrows of life in the light of that spirit, but who, though he is sure of many Christian truths, feels that he cannot honestly and conscientiously 'sign on the dotted line' that he believes certain theological ideas about what some branches of the Church dogmatize.

I think death is a tremendous adventure- a gateway into a new life, in which you have further powers, deeper joys, and wonderful horizons.

O God, take all our sorrows and use them to show us the nature of our joy.

Indeed, the opposite of joy is not sorrow. The opposite of joy is unbelief.