The prayers we weave into the matching of socks, the stirring of oatmeal, the reading of stories, they survive fire.

There are two kinds of doubt: one that fully lives into the questions, and one that uses the questions as weapons against fully living.

This day is not a sieve, losing time. With each passing minute, each passing year, there's this deepening awareness that I am filling, gaining time. We stand on the brink of eternity.

Being joyful isn't what makes you grateful. Being grateful is what makes you joyful.

When we fixate on the worst in something, we render ourselves incapable of fixing anything... But attend to the good in something - and we act towards the best in everything.

Like the wind, Grace finds us wherever we are and won't leave us however we were found.

Expose your life to real need. Visit a developing a country. Take a short term mission trip. Write an inmate, send a letter to a sponsored child, serve in the inner city, at a food bank, with a crisis pregnancy center. Make time for shut-ins, the elderly, the sick, the single-parents, the new believers. Just find one way you can make your awareness of your gift-graced life intersect with a real place of need - and Christ in us will do the rest.