Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.

The book [ One Thousand Gifts] took just over a year to write, on the fringe hours, early and late, around home educating 6 kids and farming and blogging. And I wonder if the greatest challenges was to keep pressing into it when I had never been here before. I felt like Abraham - being called to something that he didn't know how to get to.

What was intended to harm, God intended it all for good. And no matter what intends to harm you, God's arms have you. You can never be undone.

I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all the days before I die, the moments before I sleep.

Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.

We all get to choose where we set up the stage of our lives - before the Crowds, the Court, the Congregation, the Critics (inner or otherwise)-- or the Cross of Christ. All except One will assess your performance. Only One will accept you before your performance ... Only in Jesus is there 100% acceptance before even 1% performance.

Darkness transfigures into light, bad transfigures into good, grief transfigures into grace, empty transfigures into full. God wastes nothing – ‘makes everything work out according to his plan.’ (Ephesians 1:11).