Life is not about conquering. Life is about #endurance. Life is about enduring through the #pain that breeds success. Pain is a terrible thing, and beautiful thing. Pain is a terrible thing. It reminds us that we are bent. We are broken. Pain is a beautiful thing. Pain tells us that something wonderful is being #created. Think--can you tell me one good thing in your life that came from being comfortable? I cannot. Pain tells us that we are still #alive. Life is a gift. We should celebrate it. We should sing and dance to show God that we are #grateful to be alive. We can scream out in anguish too--it's okay to weep when we are in pain. This life is only part of the story. Our true #rest starts after #death.

Rest is also beautiful. Rest is the beautiful thing that pain creates. Our pain will create rest for our children. And when we are old, our children's pain will create rest for us. Jesus suffered pain so that we can rest after we die.

To be human is to die. But we only die once--and we live each and every day. These days move pretty fast. If we do not pay attention, we will miss out on the day-to-day. We will miss life. We don't have forever. We will die. Some of us have less than a single day left. As we suffer, we practice dying. Dying is the last suffering, the worst pain, that leads to the most beautiful rest. Life is not easy, it is not fair, and we should not try to make it that way. We should practice dying well. It is always possible to endure.

We often do not choose the pain that comes to us. But we choose to endure. We do not choose many of the people in our stories. Some of them bring us rest, and we accept that rest. Some of them bring us pain. And we choose to love. We choose to feel a pain that brings another rest.