Leah

“The seemingly impossible task of enduring suffering and rejoicing in it is born in the impossible reality that God became human. The implausibility of having joy in a body with an incurable disease is made possible by God in a body. The possibility of hope in your despair is alive, here, as close as your breath.”
― K.J. Ramsey, This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers

“Living with long-term suffering in American culture feels like being off-key. Suffering quiets and slows, but our culture prefers a crescendo.”
― K.J. Ramsey, This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers

“Sin is any Christian’s response to pain, poverty, and weakness that assumes they are individual problems to solve rather than places to patiently embody the solidarity of Jesus.”
― K.J. Ramsey, This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers

“Jesus’ words to his disciples are just as true for us today. We will weep and mourn. We will have sorrow. And our sorrow will turn to joy. Today, in the tension of pain that persists, we are living the reality Jesus named. Here we find the descending, rising rhythm that creates our new life. As Henri Nouwen says, “It is the way in which pain can be embraced, not out of a desire to suffer, but in the knowledge that something new will be born in the pain.”4 In our longing for tension to be relieved, we cannot miss that Jesus said sorrow comes before joy. This is the church’s story: sorrow comes before the song.”
― K.J. Ramsey, This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers