Trials and tribulations tend to squeeze the artificiality out of us, leaving the essence of what we really are and clarifying what we really yearn for.

When in situations of stress we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed

Coming unto the Lord is not a negotiation, but a surrender.

God’s grace will cover us like a cloak-enough to provide for survival but too thin to keep out all the cold.

A father who finds it difficult to express his love vocally for his children may need, at first, to be humbly obedient in holding family home evenings in order to help him to discover, or to increase, his appreciation for his children. Next can come to him the courage to say I love you to each one.

Occasionally some individuals let the seeming ordinariness of life dampen their spirits. Though actually coping and growning, others lack the quiet, inner-soul satisfaction that can steady them, and are experiencing instead, a lingering sense that there is something more important they should be doing . . .as if what is quietly achieved in righteous individual living or in parenthood are not sufficiently spectacular.

The truth is that not yet usually means never. Trying to run away from the responsibility to decide about Christ is childish. Pilate sought to refuse responsibility for deciding about Christ, but Pilate's hands were never dirtier than just after he had washed them.