Finding God can be difficult even in times of joy. But consider the times - and profound sorrows - of Abraham Lincoln. His beloved mother died a painful death before Abe's tenth birthday. His father was abusive when the man wasn't absent entirely. Abraham was so beset by depression that he neared suicide on numerous occasions. He lost one son when the boy was the tender age of three. A second was eleven when he died, and this was less than a year after Lincoln assumed the presidency of a fractured nation.

Despite his trials - or perhaps because of them - Lincoln yearned for comfort beyond the mortal world. He took counsel with ministers. He read voluminously. And he prayed. Still, it is not easy to number Lincoln among the saints. He never joined a church and he seldom spoke of Jesus Christ. Even during his lifetime, his religious statements were greeted with skepticism. And yet the evidence indicates that Lincoln did indeed struggle to find a life-changing faith, to follow the deathbed charge of the mother he adored: 'Worship God.' He struggled, too, with God's will in the great war, the war between brothers Lincoln was unable to prevent. These wrestlings led to his benevolent treatment of his former enemies and ultimately to the sentiments he expressed in the greatest of American sermons, Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address.