Lord God, I long to hear Your voice but not just secondhand through teachers, as wonderful and godly as they can be. I long to hear Your voice firsthand.

It's my absolute passionate belief that every single human being, man, woman, or child, is aching to find a face-to-face relationship with God.

Suffering is seldom an item on our list of requests to the Lord. But when it crosses our path and we are able by his grace to keep on walking, our lives become messages of hope to the world and to the church.

My brokenness is a better bridge for people than my pretend wholeness ever was.

Can't you tell when you're with someone who's listening? She hears you, really hears you. He hears the sadness in your tone or catches your joy. Be a listener, to music, to life, to others, to God. Life is noisy, but there is music in every heartbeat. God is waiting to bring joy and peace to the confusion of our days.

When I work with Women of Faith, I probably talk to anything from 15- to 20,000 women a weekend. They are dying to hear somebody tell their story out loud and not self-combust, to bring all the secrets out of the shadow into Gods light.

If guilt tells us that we've done something wrong, then shame tells us that we are something wrong. So many people feel isolated, not good enough, defined by the labels they wear rather than the identity they have in Christ. The love of Christ tells us that we're accepted; that we belong.