If a fast doesn't include any sacrifices, then it's not a fast. The discomfort is where the magic happens. Life zips along, unchecked and automatic. We default to our lifestyles, enjoying our privileges tra la la, but a fast interrupts that rote trajectory. Jesus gets a fresh platform in the empty space where indulgence resided.

Faith does not always demand that God explains Himself.

Be patient. Do the best with what you know. When you know more, adjust the trajectory.

When the jars of clay remember they are jars of clay, the treasure within gets all the glory, which seems somehow more fitting.

Usually the things we think we need become the very things we need a break from.

You will never have this day with your children again. Tomorrow they will be a little bigger then they are today. This day is a gift. Breathe and notice. Smell and touch them; study their faces and little feet and pay attention. Relish the charms of the present. Enjoy today mama. It will be over before you know it.

Maybe we don’t recognize satisfaction because it is disguised as radical generosity, a strange misnomer in a consumer culture.