By Philip Yancey

      The problem of pain will have no ultimate solution until God recreates the earth. I am sustained by faith in that great hope. If I did not truly believe that God is a Physician and not a Sadist, and that he, in George MacDonald's phrase, "feels in Himself the tortured presence of every nerve that lacks its repose," I would abandon all attempts to plumb the mysteries of suffering.

      My anger about pain has melted mostly for one reason: I have come to know God. He has given me joy and love and happmess and goodness. They have come in unexpected flashes, in the midst of my confused, imperfect world, but they have been enough to convince me that my God is worthy of trust. Knowing him is worth all enduring.

      Where does that leave me when I stand by a hospital bed the next time a close friend gets Hodgkin's disease? After all, this search started at a bedside. It leaves me with faith in a Person, a faith so solid that no amount of suffering can erode it.