I have thought often lately about the place of pain in our lives. As I watched - not directly, for the most part, but from a distance - my mother-in-law through her final painful years and days, and as I visit my own mother in her pain as well, I have had ample occasion of late to ponder suffering and its horrors and its benefits. So in glancing through some favorite web sites this morning I came upon this Gospel Coalition blog on this very theme.