God doesn't cut us to kill us but to heal us. It's the difference between experiencing the blade of a dagger in a back-alley attack and the blade of a scalpel in an operating room.

You'll ache. And you're going to love it. It will crush you. And you're still going to love all of it.

We can never be like lillies in the garden unless we have spent time as bulbs in the dark, totally ignored.

The trick is not caring that it hurts.

This is courage in a man to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing. The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom. from Caged Bird

We turned other cheeks so often our heads seemed to revolve on the end of our necks, like old stop and go signs.

Affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. Romans 5:3—4

We don't deliberately look for trouble in life. It comes. Suffering is a universal fact; no one can escape its claws.

Bearing our cross does not mean wearing gunny sacks and long faces. Some people . . . wear the look of a martyr every time they hear criticism. Sometimes we deserve the criticism we receive; however, we are blessed only when men speak evil against us falsely for Christ's sake.