Rob Delaney • A Heart That Works

when something ghastly happens, it is not helpful to many people if you say that it’s all part of God’s perfect plan, or that it’s for the highest good of every person in the drama, or that more will be revealed, even if that is all true.

We don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we feel about it. And why on earth would you choose to feel anything but good?

That’s never been my intention—I don’t want pity. I’m one of the lucky ones.

“Why?” is another tough question to stop asking because it's the one thing we all want to know. Why didn't I get the job? Why did the cancer come back? Why am I broke? Why did he do that to me? Why did she leave me? Why is this happening to me? All of these questions can be distilled down to “Why me?” And “why me” isn't very helpful. It's really a

If the receiver of my story is a Shover, she listens with nervousness and then hurriedly explains that “everything happens for a reason,” or “it’s darkest before the dawn,” or “God has a plan for you.” Standing inside the wreckage of my marriage is too uncomfortable, so she uses these tired platitudes like a broom to sweep my shattered life into a

No matter how prepared we think we are, we have no control over what might hit us. A loved one’s cancer diagnosis, the death of someone dear, an accident that keeps you bedbound, a lover who cheats, or the end of a marriage that you thought would last forever. Those traumas not only stress us, they shake our faith in life itself. It’s the kind of s

They can understand that entreaty for what it is: a way for people to make themselves feel more comfortable when faced with the death of another. It might be merely a way of avoiding an awkward subject, or a way of evading one’s own fears about death, or a desperate clinging to a hope for a cure, but ultimately it serves only the living and denies