We respond to healing grace by giving it away.

All suffering is suffering. As C. S. Lewis said, there is no such thing as "the sum of the world's suffering," an abstraction of the philosophers. There are simply individual people who hurt. And who wonder why God permits it.

Something inside me recoiled as I heard her repeat the clichéd comments from her visitors. Is Christianity supposed to make a sufferer feel even worse?

On the other hand, if the subject had nothing to do but think about his pain (as is true in many hospitals and nursing homes), he showed much greater sensitivity.

Those who mourn sense the rupture of a world severed from God and thus edge closer to the Father who promises to make all things new.

The role of the doctor, nurse, social worker, minister, or loving friend is simply this: to keep the nutcracker of circumstances from destroying, and to help the sufferer see that even the worst hardships open up the potential for growth and development.

A grace-full Christian is one who looks at the world through "grace-tinted lenses.

One of the most important things we can do for a suffering person is to restore a sense of meaning or significance to the experience.

The first step in helping a suffering person (or in accepting our own pain) is to acknowledge that pain is valid, and worthy of a sympathetic response.

God weeps with us so that we may one day laugh with him.

by embracing grief and standing beside the hurting person, we can indeed aid another's search for meaning.

Modern books on pain make a sharp contrast. Their authors assume that the amount of evil and suffering in the world cannot be matched with the traditional view of a good and loving God. God is thus bumped from a "friend of the court" position to the box reserved for the defendant. "How can you possibly justify yourself, God?" these angry moderns seem to say.