Still others endured mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.

Maybe the only enemy is that we don't like the way reality is *now* and therefore wish it would go away fast. but what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

If the Gospels were truly the pattern of God's activity, then defeat was only the beginning.

There was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.

I'm very brave generally,' he went on in a low voice: 'only today I happen to have a headache.' (Tweedledum)

the best way to prepare for suffering is to work on a strong, supportive life when you're healthy.

That in the midst of heartache so deep it was a physical pain, she was finding a deeper joy and contentment in life than she'd ever known.

Hurting but still hoping—that is the human journey.

To be weak is miserable, Doing or suffering.

Etty spent her last days giving hope and care, "with a kind word for everyone she met on the way." Her final words were written on a postcard and thrown off Wagon No. 12, the railroad car she rode to what she knew would be her death in Auschwitz. "We left camp singing," she wrote. The Nazis took control of her possessions, her mobility, her work, her family, her body, and finally her life, yet she believed that they did not truly take anything at all.

Sometimes a man is intensely, even passionately, attached to suffering — that is a fact.

A man deep-wounded may feel too much pain To feel much anger.