Louise sat before me; hands folded in her lap. Her diminutive frame the polar opposite of her towering intellect. Her face bore the unmistakable marks of a soul trying hard to stay composed in the face of overwhelming grief. At eighty-two, she still carried the poise of the distinguished scholar she once was – a retired professor of African-American studies at a large university – she had spent her life teaching others how to articulate struggle and influence in the same brea

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.” — Dr. Viktor Frankl Christmas is, on its surface, a story about joy — candles, chorales, and the warmth of reunion. But underneath that celebration lies a harder, older truth: hope entered the world through pain. The child was born in a stable, not a sanctuary. The King came wrapped in rags, not robes. From its very beginning, Christianity has insisted upon the same paradox Frankl uncovered centuri

Years ago, when I first started my career, I worked in the child and adolescent wing of a large psychiatric hospital. One of the patients I was tasked with supervising was a 12-year-old young boy named Michael. He was part of the half-day treatment program. Michael thought he was a dragon. This idea took hold of him when he was 6, and he quickly became completely convinced of it. Through years of imaginative mental creation and psychological gymnastics, he’d constructed an en