My friend Amy asked me how I could love a God that let so much pain and heartache come my way. I told her I needed to think about that for a while.
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I spent May of 2006 in New York City, and while I was there, I wanted to run away from God. It felt like He had abandoned me, and honestly, I was ready to be done with Him.
Most days, I would go into Washington Square and watch the NYU students sing songs with a hat on the ground …

I wondered if the man had been left paralyzed after a tragic accident at work, or if he had been born that way, and now his limbs were contorted from decades of muscles in atrophy. In the end, I decided that it didn’t matter; it’s always hard to be carried.
Greg said we all have some sickness and disease that can leave us helpless and if we want to be healed we have to let others help. I confessed that that was hard for me, because the disease I struggle with is individualism. “I haven’t always been like that,” I told him, “but somewhere along the way some wires inside me got crossed and I learned the best way to not be abused was to avoid.” I’m certainly not alone in that.