The dark times are there for you to grow and to create a dependency on God. This is all part of your sanctification process.

Expect some bumps and bruises when your trying to be independent.

Who wants to die? Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It's growing out of sour earth. And it's strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.

The strongest steel is forged by the fires of hell. It is pounded and struck repeatedly before it's plunged back into the molten fire. The fire gives it power and flexibility, and the blows give it STRENGTH. Those two thing make the metal pliable and able to withstand every battle it's called upon to fight.

Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.

Someone once told me that life wasn't fair...and they were right. But I don't think that life was ever meant to be fair or perfect. It's not the tragedy, it's how we deal with it. It's whether we come out stronger because of it. It's not about blocking out the pain or hiding from it, it's about letting the pain shape you into someone better than you were before.