God can't clean the house of you when you're still in it.

—Anne Lamott, U.S. author (1954—)

Early in his career, the great American playwright, Eugene O'Neill, wrote the imaginative play Lazarus Laughed. It's about Lazarus's life after Jesus raised him from the dead. Near the beginning of the play, guests from Bethany are gathering for a banquet in Lazarus's honor. They are all desperate to hear what Lazarus has to say about his experience. As they take their seats, one guest says, "The ...

From 1993–2009, ER was a popular television series on NBC about the lives of emergency room doctors and nurses. In this scene from the medical drama's third season, Dr. Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards) is upset because one of his patients, a woman with Down's syndrome who is in desperate need of a heart transplant, has been turned down by hospital administrators to receive a new heart through the ...

"My pastor needed help."

—Keith Melton, of the First Baptist Church of Maryville, Illinois, explaining why he immediately charged the gunman who had just shot his pastor, Fred Winters. The assailant had approached the pulpit as the pastor was nearing the end of his sermon and opened fire. He fired four shots, killing the pastor. Melton, sitting in congregation, immediately jumped to his feet, ...

In a 2009 article for Christianity Today magazine, author Jocelyn Green gave readers a glimpse into the lives of different military officers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder—with special attention given to the responsibility the church has in ministering to those officers. She writes:

Nate Self's military record was impeccable. A West Point graduate, he led an elite Army Ranger outfit ...

On the afternoon of May 2, 1990, I heard holy things. I was visiting Larry Hildreth, a father and husband from our church in Pennsylvania. He was in his thirties, but he was near death from cancer. I was at his home to serve him Communion, because he was too weak to come to church.

Larry was a deeply thoughtful man, and as he spoke that day, slow and deliberately, I realized I was hearing extraordinary ...

Amy Carmichael (1867–1951) was a missionary to India who suffered enormously in her life. She once wrote these words:

I have noticed that when one who has not suffered draws near to one in pain, there is rarely much power to help. I have wondered if it can be the same in the sphere of prayer. Does pain accepted and endured give some quality that would otherwise be lacking in prayer? What if every stroke ...

In his book The Unexpected Journey, Thom Rainer shares the story of Kathi, a woman who left behind a life of witchcraft and Wiccan paganism to become a follower of Jesus Christ. Immediately after her decision to become a Christian, she describes to Thom how God delivered her from the powers of evil in her life, as well as her physical deafness (Kathi had been suffering progressive hearing loss for ...

My friend Linda, who teaches first grade, told me about an interaction she had with one of her students on the first day of school. Accustomed to going home at noon in kindergarten, Ryan was getting his things ready to leave for home when he was actually supposed to be heading to lunch with the rest of the class. Linda asked him what he was doing. "I'm going home," he replied. Linda tried to explain ...

In many ways the Pixar's animated film Wall•E is a story about coming home. It tells the story of a lonely robot who for 700 years has been cleaning up the trash left behind by humans on an abandoned planet. Wall•E stands for "Waste Allocation Load Lifter–Earth class." While we are never told so, it is likely that Wall•E is the last operating robot on the planet. All of the human ...