This I can report from the front lines: life never calms down long enough for us to wait until tomorrow to start living the lives we deserve.

Deliberately seeking solitude-quality time spent away from family and friends-may seem selfish. It is not. Solitude is as necessary for our creative spirits to develop and flourish as are sleep and food for our bodies to survive.

I wish I'd known from the beginning that I was born a strong woman. What a difference it would have made! I wish I'd known that I was born a courageous woman; I've spent so much of my life cowering. How many conversations would I not only have started but finished if I had known I possessed a warrior's heart? I wish I'd known that I'd be born to take on the world; I wouldn't have run from it for so long, but run to it with open arms.

Our success already exists on a spiritual level; it's a matter of pulling it into the physical world.

Grace is available for each of us every day - our spiritual daily bread - but we've got to remember to ask for it with a grateful heart and not worry about whether there will be enough for tomorrow.

Celebrate the Sacred in the ordinary.

Ironically, gratitude's most powerful mysteries are often revealed when we are struggling in the midst of personal turmoil.