Somewhere, sometime, somehow you got tangled up in garbage, and you've been avoiding God. You've allowed a veil of guilt to come between you and your Father. You wonder if you could ever feel close to God again. The message of the torn flesh is you can. God welcomes you. God is not avoiding you. God is not resisting you. The curtain is down, the door is open, and God invites you in

Let's be the people who look at the hurting until we hurt with them. No hurrying past, turning away, or shifting of eyes. No pretending or glossing over. Let's look at the face until we see the person.

One of the greatest gifts we can give people is the hope that their death is nothing to fear - you know, not that it has no fear in it, but the promise of scripture is that God will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death.

I picked up this book called Blue Mountain, supposed to be a really good book on the Civil War.

You see, it's one thing to accept Him as Lord, another to recognize Him as Savior - but it's another matter entirely to accept Him as Father.

Let your failures refine you, not define you.

Anxiety and fear are cousins but not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one.