“God knows suffering, not because he created it, but because He experiences it with us. ... It is also true that although God knows suffering, He doesn't explain it. I waited and searched and beat myself up for that, and I know now that it just flat-out doesn't happen. God only walks us through it and out into a place where we can once again be free. He does this not because we believe some rigid this or that about Him. He does it because He believes in us. He doesn't ask us to go out into the world telling people why they suffer. Even if we knew why, it wouldn't hurt any less. What we need to know is how to help each other live with it, and live well.”

“But supposing God became a man - suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God's nature in one person - then that person could help us. He could surrender His will, and suffer and die, because He was man; and He could do it perfectly because He was God. You and I can go through this process only if God does it in us; but God can only do it if He becomes man. Our attempts at this dying will succeed only if we men share in God's dying, just as our thinking can succeed only because it is a drop out of the ocean of His intelligence: but we cannot share God's dying unless God dies; and He cannot die except by being a man. That is the sense in which He pays our debt, and suffers for us what He Himself need not suffer at all.”

“Suffering can bend & break us. But it can also break us open to become the persons God intended us to be. It depends on what we do with the pain. If we offer it back to God, He will use it to do great things in us & through us, because suffering is fertile... it an grow new life.”

“Ann: If we know God, we do not need to know why He allows us to experience what we do.”

“Yes. There is one God, and he lives in the sky, and he hears all of us. It is just that here on earth, we are confused about how to believe in him. But what does it matter, as long as we trust he is there?”

“God is good to all of us. He knows what we need better than we do. And just because he thinks it is better not to give you what you want right now doesn't mean he isn't answering you. You shall have what you ask for but not until the right time comes." - Grandmamma”