While the impostor draws his identity from past achievements and the adulation of others, the true self claims identity in its belovedness. We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences but in our simple presence in life.

Shame--what happened when my mother, the dragon, huffed and puffed and blew my self down.

Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try and find something or someone that it cannot cover. Grace is enough...

Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games or pop psychology. IT IS AN ACT OF FAITH in the God of grace.

To ignore, repress, or dismiss our feelings is to fail to listen to the stirrings of the Spirit within our emotional life. Jesus listened. In John's Gospel we are told that Jesus was moved with the deepest emotions (11:33)... The gospel portrait of the beloved Child of Abba is that of a man exquisitely attuned to His emotions and uninhibited in expressing them. The Son of Man did not scorn of reject feelings as fickle and unreliable. They were sensitive antennae to which He listened carefully and through which He perceived the will of His Father for congruent speech and action.

There is an extraordinary power in storytelling that stirs the imagination and makes an indelible impression on the mind.

The men and women who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their own imperfect existence.