What each of us longs for the most is to be both fully known and fully loved. Miraculously, God feels the same way about us. God, too, wants to be fully known and fully loved. God wants this so much that He has promised to knock down every obstacle in the way, enduring even His own death, to be with us, to consummate this love.

Faith isn't about having everything figured out ahead of time; faith is about following the quiet voice of God without having everything figured out ahead of time.

What a comfort to know that God is a poet.

From the baking aisle to the post office line to the wrapping paper bin in the attic, women populate every dark corner of Christmas. Who got up at 4 a.m. to put the ham in the oven? A woman. . . . Who sent the Christmas card describing her eighteen-year-old son's incarceration as 'a short break before college?' A woman. Who remembered to include batteries at the bottom of each stocking? A woman. And who gets credit for pulling it all off? Santa.That's right. A man.

I don't know why Christians keep fighting over which is better-singleness or marriage-when it seems rather obvious, both from Scripture and from Church history, that both can glorify God.

As a Christian, my highest calling is not motherhood; my highest calling is to follow Christ.

It is a tragic and agonizing irony that instructions once delivered for the purpose of avoiding needless offense are now invoked in ways that needlessly offend, that words once meant to help draw people to the gospel now repel them.