Morning Briefings

Why do the righteous suffer? Virtually every meaningful conversation I have ever had with people on the subject of God and religion has either started with this question, or gotten around to it before long.

– Harold S. Kushner
When Bad Things Happen to Good People

The pain is overwhelming, it over comes me everyday. I cannot work, I cannot function. MY LIFE, MY SPIRIT, MY SOUL HAVE ALL BE TAKEN AWAY FROM ME. I am suffering everyday – along with all those who love me. Every fiber of my being feels this pain, by mid day I’m saturated with it.

–
Tracy Goldbach

Disease leaves you desperate for control at a time when you have virtually none. When you’re a patient, it doesn’t matter if you arrive in a chauffeur-driven limousine or on a public bus. It doesn’t matter if you are a CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a member of its cleaning staff. It doesn’t matter if you look as if you work out every day or if you haven’t seen the inside of a gym since high school. Stripped of our clothes and dressed in hospital gowns, we are all the same.

– Christine Schwab, Take Me Home From the Oscars

In what might be good news for coffee drinkers, a new study found that women who regularly consume caffeinated beverages are less likely to suffer depression.

– Jennifer Corbett Dooren
Coffee May Help Women Lower Depression Risk, The Wall Street Journal

Your pain and suffering are real because they are yours. You must embrace them and realize that they, too, are a gift of life because they take you out of yourself and, for a moment, make you one with all others who have known loss or pain or suffering.

– Kent Nerburn
Letters to My Son: A Father’s Wisdom on Manhood, Life and Love

Amid Tragedy, A Remarkable Rescue Nine Miles at Sea: Japanese sailors rescue Hiromitsu Shinkawa Sunday, two days after the 60-year-old was washed to sea on the roof of his Minamisoma home by a tsunami caused by a powerful earthquake. Thousands feared dead.

– The Wall Street Journal, March 14, 2011

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.

– Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist

Suffering comes to everyone. No matter how smart you are, no matter how rich you are, there’s just no way to prevent ‘external’ events from interfering with your plans. That’s why you can’t ever allow your peace of mind to depend on external events.

– Anthony DeStefano
Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To

Presence is noun, not a verb; it is a state of being, not doing. True presence, or ‘being with’ another person carries with it a silent power–to bear witness to a passage, to help carry an emotional burden, or to begin a healing process.

– Debbie Hall from
This I Believe

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

– Mother Teresa
from the Faith & Prosperity blog