Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted.

I you think you've done it, then you're wrong. Because you're not finished until you have achieved everything that you never thought you could.

Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself.

I am wonderfully content with a God who does not deal with me as my sins deserve.

The spirituality of wonder knows the world is charged with grace, that while sin and war, disease and death are terribly real, God's loving presence and power in our midst are even more real.

One of the the loveliest lines I have ever read comes from Brother Roger, the Prior of the Protestant monks of Taize, France: 'Assured of your salvation by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.' It is still difficult for me to read these words without tears filling my eyes. It is wonderful.

The splendor of a human heart that trusts it is loved unconditionally gives God more pleasure than Westminster Cathedral, the Sistine Chapel, Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony”, Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, the sight of 10,000 butterflies in flight, or the scent of a million orchids in bloom. Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it.