“No. Grief and anger doesn’t shock me.” Catherine paused. “Rachel, do you remember that day at the convent when we saw the old biplane? Remember what I said?” Rachel laughed without amusement. “I don’t even remember what I said.” “’Who can doubt the presence of God in the sight of men whom He has given wings.’ I recall that so precisely because I’ve had time to consider my error.” She smiled. “God didn’t give man wings; He gave him the brain and the spirit to give himself wings. Just as He gave us the capacity to laugh when we hurt, or to struggle on when we feel like giving up. I’ve come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death…is the true measure of the Divine within us. Some, like Crossen, choose to do harm to themselves and others. Others, like Kenji, bear up under their pain and help others to bear it. I used to wonder, why did God give children leprosy? Now I believe: God doesn’t give anyone leprosy. He gives us, if we choose to use it, the spirit to live with leprosy, and with the imminence of death. Because it is in our own mortality that we are most Divine.”

“Who can doubt the presence of God in the sight of men whom He has given wings?I recall that so precisely because I've had time to consider my error. God didn't give man wings; He gave him the brain and the spirit to give himself wings. Just as He gave us the capacity to laugh when we hurt, or to struggle on when we feel like giving up. I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death...is the true measure of the Divine within us. Some choose to do harm to others. Others bear up under their pain and help others to bear it.”

“God didn't give man wings; He gave him the brains and the spirit to give himself wings. Just as He gave us the capacity to laugh when we hurt, or to struggle on when we feel like giving up.I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death...is the true measure of the Divine within us.”

“I've come to believe that how we choose to live with pain, or injustice, or death....is the true measure of the Divine within us.”

“We desire that God would give us the death-stroke; but we long to die without pain; we would die to our own will by the power of the will itself; we want to lose all and still hold all. Ah! what agony, what distress, when God has brought us to the end of our strength! We faint like a patient under a painful surgical operation. But the comparison is nought, for the object of the surgeon is to give us life -- that of God to make us die.”

“I know that the experiences of our lives, when we let God use them, become the mysterious and perfect preparation for the work He will give us to do.”