The Third Stage of Prayer—Giving Thanks

The Minnesota storyteller Kevin Kling was born with a birth defect—his left arm was disabled and much shorter than his right. Then, in his early ...

Doctors Research the Unique Cries of Newborns

A baby's cry just sounds like any other baby cry, right? Actually, an article in The Wall Street Journal reports that new medical research is showing ...

HBO Documentary Records Our Secret Pain

A 2012 HBO Documentary followed the performance artist Marina Abramovic in her work called "The Artist Is Present." Over a period of 90 days, 850,000 ...

Man Saddened that Friends Can't Share His Grief

The British novelist Julian Barnes tried to capture the loneliness of what he calls "grief-work." After thirty years of marriage, his wife Pat died from ...

Ambulance Driver Reflects on Newtown Tragedy

[Shortly after Christmas 2012], I addressed the New England town of Newtown, Connecticut, a community reeling from the murder of 20 schoolchildren ...

Children's Book Character Carries His "Sadness Shield"

We all seem to need a strategy for coping with the experience of grief. In the screen adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book Where ...

Classic Fairy Tales Highlight the Struggles of Life

Naomi Zacharias writes of her experiences as director of Wellspring International, an advocate for at-risk women and children around the world. She has ...

The Shortest Complete Story Reveals Life's Brokenness

[This] is often called the shortest complete story in English, supposedly written by Ernest Hemingway. It is only six words long:

"For sale: baby ...

Jewish 'Shiva' Practice Helps Loved Ones Grieve

After witnessing firsthand the devastating effects of civil war, oppressive regimes, and natural disasters, Palmer Chichen has observed that the Hebrew ...

John Stott on How the Cross Speaks to Injustice and Suffering

How does the cross of Jesus speak to a world of pain, poverty, and injustice? After explaining the full range of biblical ideas of the atonement, Stott ...