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.

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.

Every time I surrender to stress, aren’t I advertising the unreliability of God?

You were made for the place where your real #‎ passion meets #‎ compassion because there lies your real purpose.

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.

There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.

Remembering with thanks is what causes us to trust - to really believe.