Suffering is an oxymoron. There is unfathomable peace and satisfaction in suffering for Christ. It is as though you have searched endlessly for your purpose in life and now found it in the most unexpected place: In the death of your flesh. It is certainly a moment worth of laughter and dance. And in the end it is not suffering at all. The apostle Paul recommended that we find joy in it. Was he mad?

What is pure Bill? Or excellent or admirable? The death of a million people in a flood? God evidently through so. He is incapable of acts that are not admirable, and it is He who brought about the Flood. How about the slaying of children in Jericho? There are a few Bible stories that are not as terrible as they are happy. We just prefer to leave out the terrible part, but that only makes the good anemic.

You'll have to learn to control your emotions. They're new, like achild's now, bursting with passion. Never let them fade, or part of you will die. But they cal also destroy you. Hold them dear, but don't let them take hold of you.

Writing wasn't about making money. I wanted to find fulfillment in writing and telling stories, and that's what's driven me.

You should know something, Miriam.... God changed our futures yesterday. There's no other explanation for what happened. And it wasn't the first God. If you ever need hlep, you might want to try the second God.

There's always risk in life's most rewarding pursuits, isn't there?

The pain was so deep and so raw. There were days I would have died just to forget. The problem was, I couldn't figure out how to get her out of my mind. How do you kill that kind of pain?