As I sat at the prayer line, phone in hand, I could feel the weight of this man’s voice on the other end. Dan* was calling from the side of the road. The words he spoke were raw, desperate, and genuine. He wasn’t asking for money, not seeking worldly solutions—he was...

For more than ten years, I’ve talked with Alan* on a regular basis. Disabled since childhood, he’s spent most of his 40 years confined to a bed. Yet from the very beginning, his spirit struck me as unusually sweet—resilient, hopeful, and remarkably free of self-pity....

Anna* wasn’t always this way. As a youth, her laughter could light up a room when she sang in the church choir and volunteered at potlucks with joy in her eyes. But slowly, something inside her began to shift. Personality changes crept in—dark clouds of depression and...