Nothing else but Faith

For many people, it takes the jolt of tragedy, illness, or death to create an existential crisis of faith. At such a moment, we want clarity; God wants our trust. A Scottish preacher in the last century lost his wife suddenly, and after her death he preached an unusually personal sermon. He admitted in the message that he did not understand this life of ours. But still less he could understand how people facing loss could abandon faith. "Abandon it for what!" he said. "You people in the sunshine may believe the faith, but we in the shadow must believe it. We have nothing else."

'Reaching for the Invisible God', Chapter 4: Faith Under Fire, by Philip Yancey