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.

Life isn't an emergency. Christ is in charge of every moment of the day; nothing catches Him off guard.

Giving thanks is that: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of God when Satan and all the world would sneer at us to recant.

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 think God calls us to small things, to faithfulness right where we are, to just do the next thing.

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

Real Womanhood isn’t a function of becoming a great mother, but of being loved by your Great Father.