A man named John Wilson writes about his father‑in‑law who was a lifelong Bible teacher. However, his father-in-law found his faith troubled in his final years. A degenerative nerve disease confined him to bed, impeding him from most of the activities that gave him pleasure.

Meanwhile, his thirty-nine‑year‑old daughter was battling a severe form of diabetes. Financial pressures mounted. During the most severe crisis, his father-in-law composed a Christmas letter and mailed it to others in the family. Many things that he had once taught, he now felt uneasy about. What could he believe with certainty? He came up with these three things. These were the three things he believed regardless of what life may send his way: "Life is difficult. God is merciful. Heaven is sure." These things he could count on. "Life is difficult. God is merciful. Heaven is sure." When his daughter died of diabetic complications the very next week after mailing his letter, he clung to those truths ever more fiercely.

What he was saying was that though life sometimes gets tough, ultimately, not a hair on our head will perish. We are in God's hands. He will not let us fall.