We would follow Arthur to the very gates of Hell and beyond if he asked it. And that is the solitary truth. - Stephen R. Lawhead

We are closest to Christ when sharing the world’s misery. Think you Jesus came to remove our pains? Wherever did you get that notion? The Lord came, not to remove our suffering, but to show us the way through it to the glory beyond. We can overcome our travails. That is the promise of the cross.

A favourite saying in China—which she had heard on occasion from her own grandmother—was that the threads of life are easy to weave, but difficult to untangle.

"What makes you so certain?"
"But I am not certain," I told him. "Nothing is certain. You want certainty?"
"Yes!"
"Then you want death."