Religion

Please, not now! Don’t come right now! Please... I suddenly opened my eyes in the darkness of my bedroom and, all of a sudden, the heat wave building up during the nightmare met the coolness of the night reality. You haven’t come yet... Thank you, God!

Nothing can prepare us in advance for the suffering we will experience in this life. But even knowing this, we often remember with guilt the moments of blissful ignorance we had before suffering hit us.

"I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me" (Proverbs 8:17).

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Europe was hit hard by several disasters, the proportions of which are difficult to imagine today.

I never expected my work to affect my mental health. At first, like most people just starting a new job, I was thrilled about my new class, the kids I would be teaching and the environment I wanted to create for these young minds. I had a real passion for children and couldn’t wait to be the best teacher I could be. I...

Jim Ayer was, for most of his life, a slave to his own dreams—a fisherman of thrills and addictions. From when he was a child, he attached a ball and chain to each ankle, closed himself up in his own world, and threw away the key.

In 2004, we experienced firsthand one of the most devastating tsunamis of our century. It was early morning, on Boxing Day.

In those times when grief accompanies us and we find ourselves alone in the middle of the night, does God shed tears with us?

How can we protect ourselves against expecting too much of our friendships? Can we do something to prepare for the disappointment? And what does one do to deal with it?

Kent Hansen kindly agreed to talk to us about the most painful episode of his life, the loss of his wife. Beyond the sadness, it is a discussion rich in emotion and lessons for us all. 

I am visiting two sick people who share the same terminal illness. Their suffering is increased by the fact that they are brothers and that a mother’s broken heart lies at the core of it all. One of them is a businessman. The other, a servant of the altar. Their mother’s greatest frustration is that her wish to take some of the suffering...

God uses the traits we dislike as well as our weaknesses to create something great, beyond our abilities and imagination. This is the message that pervades the pages of "The Woman with the Book", the biography of the missionary Gladys Aylward.

I was there, I saw him. He was coming towards me mechanically, impassively, coldly. He suddenly stopped in front of me and waited for me to speak. For a moment, I froze. He was tall, thin, his face oval and his eyes blue, slightly sunken under his eyelids. I had met such people before, but there was something special about him.

Humanity has not only reimagined God but has also redefined its expectations. Among Christians, many believe happiness is a promise made by God Himself. But what if this pursuit is nothing more than a chase after illusions?

For me, 2022 was the year of waiting—a word that managed to define our lives, thoughts and actions to an unexpected degree.