Really, the greatest compliments about a book [One Thousand Gifts] are never about the book, or the author of the book, but about the reader and God and how the pages helped them connect at a deeper level.

Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.

The blog is meant to be a bit of a side chapel - a place to slip into and still and encounter the glory of God - and come away again with a fresh sense that your life, right where you are, is a holy experience - that God dwells with you and in you, and where you are is holy ground, worthy of reverence and celebration and wonder.

God reveals Himself in rearview mirrors. And I've an inkling that there are times when we need to drive a long, long distance, before we can look back and see God's back in the rearview mirror. Maybe sometimes about as far as heaven -- that kind of distance.

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.

Because nothing is greater and we have no greater need, God gives God.

Love comes softly, it cannot be forced...cannot bear the weight of our expectations. Love always comes in the surrender - in the falling.