GRACE IN SUFFERING

Ultimately there is tremendous grace in suffering -- not because of the pain of the suffering itself but because suffering allows us to reorient ourselves in ways that we simply could never have done had life proceeded in an untroubled manner.  Suffering gives us the occasion to listen as we never have listened before -- both to new words and to new sources of wisdom -- and to turn listening into seeing. 

-- William Long & Glandion Carney in A Hard-Fought Hope,  (c) 2004. Used by permission of The Upper Room(R).


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