For a wound to heal, you have to clean it out. Again, and again, and again. And this cleaning process stings. The cleaning of a wound hurts. Yes. Healing takes so much work. So much persistence. And so much patience. But every process has an end and an appointed term. Your healing will come... And like all created things, your worldly pain will die.

Be careful about wanting what others have. There is always a price. Perhaps God didn’t give it to you, because He knew you wouldn’t be able to pay it.

Don’t you think there’s a problem when we live in a society that considers a woman’s greatest accomplishment being pretty for a man?

You have trouble feeling alive, so you stab your own heart just to feel something. It was the emptiness that was killing you. You created the sadness and the fear to fill it.

There’s something amazing about this life. The very same worldly attribute that causes us pain is also what gives us relief: Nothing here lasts. What does that mean? It means that the breathtakingly beautiful rose in my vase will wither tomorrow. It means that my youth will neglect me. But it also means that the sadness I feel today will change tomorrow. My pain will die. My laughter won’t last forever but neither will my tears. We say this life isn’t perfect. And it isn’t. It isn’t perfectly good. But, it also isn’t perfectly bad, either.

Everything you say or allow into your eyes or ears becomes data that is stored in your heart. That data is later replayed during your prayer. If you want to know what is filling your heart, look at what you think about in your prayer. If you want to guard your heart, guard your eyes, ears, and tongue.

The sin of Kibr (arrogance) is actually worse than many of the sins that we would be advising [other] people about.