joy. God lets us experience seasons of emptiness and futility that simply cannot be endured if our real aim is satisfaction in this life. Jesus’s greatest moment of surrender came when He faced His most terrifying prospect of aloneness. And that surrender released His deepest resolve. The tortures of Gethsemane prepared Him for the unspeakable horrors of Calvary. Without wrestling in the Garden, would He have found the strength to remain on the cross? I don’t know. But I do know that when the terror