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.

All fear is but the notion that God's love ends.

We give thanks to God not because of how we feel, but because of Who He is.

The greatest compliment of the book [One Thousand Gifts]? Maybe the Muslim man in Iraq who was given the book and came to a saving knowledge of Jesus, wanted to live his life in thanks to God?

On the night He was betrayed Jesus broke bread and lifted it up and gave THANKS. If Jesus can give thanks in that, can we not give thanks in all?

All God makes is good. Can it be that that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God?

Faith thanks God in the middle of the story.