Something seemed different about her the past few weeks. She was usually upbeat and funny, but she had changed. I picked up on it a time or two, but dismissed it as the usual teenage drama. I remember when I was a teen–way back in the stone age. One day I would be cool with you and the next I didn’t know you.

To a culture driven by a desire for entertainment, health, wealth, and prosperity, the fact that Jesus promised trials and tribulations is shocking. Even as a Christian, I don’t like it. I don’t want sickness, perplexity, sorrow, loneliness, and desolation. And I don’t like the fact that God may ask any or all of those things from me to bring about his own glory and his own purpose.