...Help me let go of my need to stay immersed in negativity. I can change the energy in myself and my environment from nega­tive to positive. I will affirm the good until it sinks in and feels real. I will also strive to find one quality that I like about someone else who's important to me, and I will take the risk of telling him or her that.

Wants and needs are closely connected. And all our needs, even the ones we're not completely aware of yet, will be met. Be grateful that God knows more about what we need than we do. Sometimes when we pray, we get what we want. Sometimes we get what we need. Accept both answers-the yes's and the something else's-with heartfelt gratitude. Then look around and see what your lesson and gift is.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.

Waiting time is not wasted time. Something is being worked out - in us, in someone else, in the Universe.

I gave three years of my life to take care of my dying mother who had Alzheimer's disease. Being there for her every need for three years might have looked codependent but it wasn't because it was what I wanted to do.

You don't blast a heart open," she said. "You coax and nurture it open, like the sun does to a rose.

It's so easy to look around and notice what's wrong. It takes practice to see what's right.