I think that's the true litmus test for someone who has become closer to Jesus: their heart is more loving, accepting, childlike, less believing that they have all the answers and more believing in Him.

Leave. Roll the world around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful world, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed.

There's a lot of letters, and a lot of people come say "hi" at book signings, but I'm amazed at how normal everybody is.

I asked God to help me understand the story of the forest and what it means to be a tree in that story.

I started Storyline after I'd accomplished all my goals and still wasn't happy. I'd become a New York Times bestselling author, which was my goal from high school, and yet I was less happy after accomplishing my goals than I was before.

I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again. God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.

The human body essentially recreates itself every six months. Nearly every cell of hair and skin and bone dies and another is directed to its former place. You are not who you were last November.