I can spend 10 to 15 minutes with someone, and they can tell me what they're going through. I may never have gone through that, but I get it on a really deep level.

There were times when I was so sick of talking about the Bible.

This last year... I learned something about family. Like it's not about blood alone. It's being connected... it's growing up together and loving each other. It's believing in the same God and knowing you'd do anything for the person across from you at dinner.

Christmas is ... a time to mark our progress through this earthly journey. Every December we can look back and marvel at the designs of God and realize how very little we are in control of the events that shaped the past year. Then, with hearts full, look to the celebration of that silent, holy night, and all its certainty. Because of Christmas, this we know: Christ was born for us. He is love, and the plans he has for us always surpass those of our own.

Her eyes held an endless kind of love for him.

The death of a friendship was usually slow and insidious, like the wearing away of a hillside after years of too much rain. A handful of misunderstandings, a season of miscommunication, the passing of time, and where once stood two women with a dozen years of memories and tears and conversation and laughter—where once stood two women closer than sisters—now stood two strangers.

Love happens when people forgive.