Confidence tends to minimize the magnitude of the choice.

When you only do what is expected of you, you never learn what you would've done had you chosen for yourself.

I used to think mercy meant showing kindness to someone who didn't deserve it, as if only the recipient defined the act. The girl in between has learned that mercy is defined by its giver. Our flaws are obvious, yet we are loved and able to love, if we choose, because there is that bit of the divine still smoldering in us.

We are born knowing how to be just. And we die knowing we spent a lifetime pretending we didn't.

I don't know very many people who can piece together eloquent prayers when their souls are wounded. Words don't come at those times, but tears do. I have always thought of my tears as prayers.

Our flaws are obvious, yet we are loved and able to love, if we choose, because there is that bit of the divine still smoldering in us.

No one thinks much about their ability to breathe; they just do it. It's when a person can't breathe, that they suddenly realize they'd been doing something truly marvelous all along.