Katie Hubbard was coming to grips with the extent of pain and suffering in the world as she waited for her own miracle. She also knew that the trials recorded in the Bible far outnumbered the miracles recorded. What is more, you can't minister to people in pain unless you've experienced it yourself.

That was a lesson Katie learned well. She was waiting on a miracle herself in the face of her own pain and suffering. Yet her heart was growing softer toward a hurting world around her. That is a miracle in itself!

Katie would often say (in her mom's words) that trials can make you bitter or better. Perhaps her journey will help you see how suffering can make you better, softer, more compassionate when you keep turning your attention to Jesus.

Please take note that Katie was also turning her attention to Plutarch! What a fantastic window into the kind of person she was. Though she felt so sick that she could hardly leave her room, she was expanding her mind by reading The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (as a part of her reading in The Great Books of the Western World).

"We want the miracles of Acts but not the trials."