The life that counts blessings discovers its yielding more than it seems.

I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives.

And when I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me.

I know the theological answers, but do my blood and my pulse?

Be radical about grace and relentless about truth and resolute about holiness.

What if I gave thanks in the trouble, for the trouble, because the trouble is a gift that causes me to turn? What if I loved God not for His goods but for His love itself that is goodness enough?

You can give up the need to compete in the world- when you accept being complete in Christ.