In light of the economic crisis, SnagAJob.com asked 691 out-of-work adults (18 and older) the following question: Has your layoff been a blessing in disguise? The majority of those surveyed offered a positive response:

• Thirty-nine percent said being laid off has been a blessing.
• Sixteen percent said they feel it will become a blessing.
• Forty percent said it was not a blessing.
• Four percent said they didn't know yet.

Tony Snow, former press secretary for President George W. Bush, has been battling cancer, off and on, since early 2005. When asked what spiritual lessons he has learned from his battle, he replied: "We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road."

In an on-line article for Leadership journal, John Ortberg discusses how adverse situations are necessary for our spiritual growth. He writes:

Psychologist Jonathon Haidt had a hypothetical exercise: Imagine that you have a child, and for five minutes you're given a script of what will be that child's life. You get an eraser. You can edit it. You can take out whatever you want.

You read that your child ...

In his book The Pressure's Off, psychologist Larry Crabb uses a story from his childhood to illustrate our need to delight in God through adversity:

One Saturday afternoon, I decided I was a big boy and could use the bathroom without anyone's help. So I climbed the stairs, closed and locked the door behind me, and for the next few minutes felt very self-sufficient.

Then it was time to leave. I couldn't ...

Can you imagine what it would be like to lose three generations of your family in one blinding moment? How would you survive? That happened in 1991 to Jerry Sittser, a professor at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington.

He, his wife, Lynda, their four children, and his mother, Grace, had been to a Native American powwow in Idaho. As they were returning home, a car with a drunk driver going 85 ...

A businessman asked me if I would speak to his staff, and I readily accepted. One of his staff asked me if we could talk privately. She said, "Ian, when I was 22, I was in a serious car accident, and my boyfriend was killed. I have gone through a lot of surgery and am now doing well. When that happened, I lost my faith."

What do you say to someone like that? Well, I prayed and I said, as kindly as ...

Singer-songwriter and author Jennifer Rothschild shares her story in Decision magazine:

As a little girl, I was captivated by colors. I loved to get the biggest box possible and read the titles of each crayon. I would study the differences between garnet, scarlet, maroon, and burgundy. My dream was to be a commercial artist. I remember taking a crisp white paper from my dad's office, and with a black ...

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived. Prayer offers no ironclad guarantees—just the certain promise that we need not live that mystery alone.

—Philip Yancey, author of Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

The summer drought of 2007 allowed scientists and archaeologists in Florida to look through a window into the state's past and uncover hidden treasures just below the surface of Lake Okeechobee.

Okeechobee is the nation's second largest lake. Because of the drought, the lake hit its lowest level on record. In some areas the shoreline receded more than a mile, creating areas of dry lakebed where historical ...

Big Ed goes to the revival and listens to the preacher. After a while the preacher asks anyone with needs to come forward to be prayed over. Big Ed gets in line. When it's his turn, the preacher says, "Big Ed, what do you want me to pray about?"

Big Ed says, "Preacher, I need you to pray for my hearing."

So the preacher puts one finger in Big Ed's ear and the other hand on top of his head and shouts, ...