In order to meaningfully repent of the ways in which we violate love, we must recognize them. We won’t recognize self-protective patterns of relating as sinful violations of love until we face the disappointment in our soul we’re determined never to experience again.

We were designed to love and when we do, something good develops inside. We feel clean, rich, whole. Even better, we become less concerned with how we feel and more concerned with the lives of others.

When hints of sadness creep into our soul, we must not flee into happy or distracting thoughts. Pondering the sadness until it becomes overwhelming can lead us to deep change in the direction of our being from self-preservation to grateful worship.

We can't always make life work. But we can always draw near to God. There is a different way to approach our problems. There is a NEW WAY to live.

When spiritual friends share their stories, the others listen without working. They rest. There’s nothing to fix, nothing to improve. A spiritual community feels undisturbed quiet as they listen, certainly burdened . . . but still resting in the knowledge that the life within, the passion for holiness, is indestructible. It needs only to be nourished and released.

Godly people... nobly endure hard things. They know that their existence is meaningful and that they are destined for unlimited pleasure at the deepest level in heaven. Because they keenly feel that nothing now quite meets the standards of their longing souls, the quiet but deeply throbbing ache within them drives them not to compalint, but to anticipation and further yieldedness.

Other forms of relating to God that have unique value in connecting us to Him include contemplative prayer and centering prayer.