If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, “Enjoy your place in my story. The beauty of it means you matter, and you can create within it even as I have created you.”

It blew my mind that what I was thinking was actually applicable to people's lives, and it certainly revolutionized family.

I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can't see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their spouses, and they go looking for an easier story.

...I should have people around bugging me and getting under my skin because without people I could not grow - I could not grow in God, and I could not grow as a human.

Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.

Every human being is searching for a deep sense of meaning, and yet we're all chasing success. We've confused one for the other.

And if these mountains had eyes, they would wake to find two strangers in their fences, standing in admiration as a breathing red pours its tinge upon earth's shore. These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man's weak praise should be given God's attention.