Do not diminish the wounds you have received because you have heard far worse stories than yours; minimizing the impact of a wound never heals it. Jesus cares about it all.

I don't trust a man who hasn't suffered; I don't let a man get close to me who hasn't faced his wound.

And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun/ And she forgot the blue above the trees,/ And she forgot the dells where waters run,/ And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;/ She had no knowledge when the day was done,/ And the new morn she saw not: but in peace/ Hung over her sweet basil evermore,/ And moisten'd it with tears unto the core.

All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain. If we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it to those around us.

Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you. Don't waste your pain; use it to help others.

We often find comfort in telling what is painful in actual experience.

The problem of suffering is not about something but about someone.

The cloud of the consommé's warmth enveloped her face and revived her poise. In the liquid a slice of lemon lay at fetal peace.

What kind of second-rate grief is it that permits them to walk?

It does provide a greater basket for tenderly holding and intimately knowing our suffering in any and all circumstances, and that, it turns out, is transformative, and can make all the difference between endless imprisonment in pain and suffering and freedom from suffering

[On her father:] ... in losing him I lost my greatest blessing and comfort, for he was always that to me.

Wounded healers are GOD's Greatest weapons.