Finding meaning in suffering is one of the greatest challenges facing Christians. The issues are compounded in a culture that despises vulnerability, promotes the right to die and allows the end of life to be ruled by bureaucratic convenience I never truly understood those who ran away at the time of Christ’s Passion. That is, until I accompanied my husband of 37 years through his struggle with terminal cancer. And our struggle, as a family, to come to terms with the fact that no cavalry was coming over the hill, no happy ending was in sight. Then I understood the Apostles’ fugue: into sleep, into hiding, into denial.When you face the extremes of human suffering and vulnerability in another person, especially so­meone you love, you are facing the most painful truth about