God has the power to take every bad thing that happens to you and make it contribute

ultimately to your good.

Then QED, ladies and gentlemen, ultimately it is good that they have happened to us.

I remember when I was a little boy and I would go out and I would get hurt and I would

experience pain, either emotional pain, somebody would tease me or make fun of me or

exclude me from a game and hurt my feelings

or if I fall down and hit my head on a rock and my head would be bleeding and I would run home

crying, crocodile tears pouring down my cheeks and how my mother would meet me in the kitchen

and she'd have her apron on and she would hug me and I would be sobbing and you know

how little kids after they're done crying they can't breathe, they're gasping and I would be sobbing and you know how little kids after they're done crying,

they can't breathe, they're gasping and I would be gasping like that, and the tears would

still be there and she would take the corner of her apron and she would stoop over and she

would wipe away my tears. That's one of the tenderest things that any human being can do

for another person, huh, to wipe away their tears.

And it was comforting.

It brought me consolation.

And any time pain happened and she wasn't there, I'm like any other kid in history, my

first cry was I want my mommy.

Because my mommy was the one who could kiss it and make it go away, make it

all better. But when my mom dried away my tears, they would come back. The Bible says that

in heaven, God is going to wipe away our tears. And when God wipes away our tears, it's the end of tears.

We will never weep again from grief or sorrow or sadness. And so on the one hand, we know that we are living in a world that the Bible describes as a veil of tears.

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