Suffering has a way of intruding. It isn’t respectful. It doesn’t ask for permission. Though it also isn’t biased. It causes the just and the unjust, the good and the evil, to take a step back and reorient their lives. It shoves it’s way into our daily rhythms and forces us to ask questions of ourselves we never wished to entertain before. However it’s subtle and sly in the way it does so. It doesn’t hold a proverbial gun to our head and force us to drink from a cup we weren’t already holding. It reveals and exposes what was already in our hearts -- the cup that was already in our hands. In the face of suffering some drink out of the cup of coping mechanisms, while others drink from the cup that conquers.

This picture was taken almost 28 years ago on Easter Sunday. It was the most beautiful day. The sun was shining, and the birds were chirping. I can even remember folding my lace-trimmed socks down over my white patent leather shoes.