But our hearts are more elastic than we think, and the work of forgiveness and transformation and growth can do things you can't even imagine from where you're standing now.

We sometimes choose the most locked up, dark versions of the story, but what a good friend does is turn on the lights, open the window, and remind us that there are a whole lot of ways to tell the same story.

...what I can do is offer myself, wholehearted and present, to walk with the people I love through the fear and the mess. That's all any of us can do. That's what we're here for.

That's why it's hard, I think, to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. I love that line from the Bible, but it's so incredibly difficult sometimes, because when you've got reason to rejoice, you forget what it's like to mourn, even if you swear you never will. And because when you're mourning, the fact that someone close to you is rejoicing seems like a personal affront.

When things fall apart, the broken pieces allow all sorts of things to enter, and one of them is the presence of God.

This is how the world changes - little by little, table by table, meal by meal, hour by hour. This is how we chip away at isolation, loneliness, fear. This is how we connect, in big and small ways - we do it around the table.

We have, each one of us, been entrusted with one life, made up of days and hours and minutes. We're spending them according to our values, whether or not we admit it.