The choice is yours: Enjoy a delicious meal of, say, veal fantarella with grilled vegetables. Or spend a quiet hour reading David Gregory's book. You may find an altogether different sort of hunger has been sated by the final page. Brilliant in its simplicity, fearless in its presentation of the truth, Dinner with a Perfect Stranger is one invitation you'll want to RSVP.

For me, laughter is how we take a much needed break from the heartache, such that when we turn to face it again, it has by some miracle grown smaller in size and intensity, yet not disappeared altogether.

Wherever you are spiritually, whatever you have been through emotionally, you are already wrapped in the Lord’s embrace. Held by nail-scarred hands. Enfolded in the arms of One who believes in you, supports you, treasures you, and loves you.

Hard times are purposeful, meant to refine and redirect us. They're not arbitrary or random, and they're definitely not cruel.

It's not where we've been that matters to God. It's who we are becoming in Him.

With God, it isn’t who you were that matters; it’s who you are becoming.

The head thinks, the hands labor, but it's the heart that laughs.