How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can't I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, I can enter the gates to glory. Living in His presence is fullness of joy- and seeing shows the way in.

I think it was simply word of mouth that made it a New York Timesbestseller for more than 60 weeks, over a year. People being moved and changed and transformed by the book [One Thousand Gifts] and wanting to share that with hurting people all around them.

Gratitude is at the center of a life of faith. It sounds to simple to be true, but isn't that the sign of all deep truth: so simple we're tempted to dismiss it, and so hard, it is exactly what God uses to change our hard lives.

But wells don't come without first begging to see the wells; wells don't come without first splitting open hard earth, cracking back the lids. There's no seeing God face-to-face without first the ripping.

When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us?

Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.

More important than a clean house is a close family.