Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.... Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.

I fly to Paris and discover how to make love to God.

The whole of the life -- even the hard -- is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. 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.

Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love-beat of the Father's heart.

When we know Christ, we always know how things are going to go...always for our good and always for His glory.

It's the greatest compliment when the writer becomes invisible in the whole process.

I think it was simply word of mouth that made it a New York Times bestseller for more than 60 weeks, over a year. People being moved and changed and transformed by the book [ One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are] and wanting to share that with hurting people all around them.