And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it.

Sometimes I wish I could go back in time, sit down with myself and explain that things were going to be okay, that everybody loses ground sometimes and it doesn’t mean anything. It’s the way life works. This is hard to understand in the moment. You get to thinking about the girl who rejected you, the job you got fired from, the test you failed, and you lose sight of the big picture — the fact that life has a beautiful way of remaking itself every few weeks.

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

Sometimes the things we want most in life are the things that will kill us.

And when you find love, or when you are mature enough to understand it, the feeling you get is gratitude.

If I use the Bible to prove I am right, I have yet to be humbled by the beautiful truths of the Bible.

I know, from the three visits I made to him, the blended composite of love and fear that exists only in a boy's notion of his father.