When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us?

God appoints people who do disappoint - to point to a God who never disappoints.

The moment when you are most repelled by a child's behavior, that is your warning light to draw the very closest to that child.

Research actually indicates that if you write down what you're grateful for, it increases your happiness by 25 percent. And who doesn't want that? And God's word says (1 Thessalonians 5), "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Who doesn't want to know exactly what God's will is for them?

We want clarity -- and God gives a call. We want a road map --- and God gives a relationship. We want answers -- and God gives His hand.

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.

I wonder if the greatest challenges was to keep pressing into [writing] when I had never been here before. I felt like Abraham - being called to something that he didn't know how to get to.