The wrinkled man in the wheelchair with the legs wrapped, the girl with her face punctured deep with the teeth marks of a dog, the mess of the world, and I see - this, all this, is what the French call d'un beau affreux, what the Germans call hubsch-hasslich - the ugly-beautiful. That which is perceived as ugly transfigures into beautiful. What the postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin expressed as 'Le laid peut etre beau' - The ugly can be beautiful. The dark can give birth to life; suffering can deliver grace.

I began [blogging] because I have this handicap - I can't figure out my life or see God clearly unless I untangle my life again with words.

Pick up a yardstick to measure your life against anyone else's, and you've just picked up a stick and beaten up your own soul.

Worry is the facade of taking action when prayer really is.

In naming that which is right before me, that which I'd otherwise miss, the invisible becomes visible.

[Bill Jensen] shared his extensive publishing background with me, and prayerfully offered to work out a proposal and to see if God opened any publishing doors? I never get over the unexpected ways of God.

God is always good and we are always loved... even when what He gives may appear ugly.