When the world careens out of control, we can rest in the fact that God spun this world with a simple word. Matter from emptiness. Beauty from void. Community from chaos.

We cannot let the haters of this world define us. Or frighten us into no longer being ourselves.

Worry is a weighty monster with poisoned tentacles. It clutches at us, grabs at our minds, steals our breath, our will. It lurks. It pounces. It colors how we perceive the world.

God's heart…is not that we escape our lot, but that we learn to thrive in the midst of it.

Dare to be brave today, and trust that when you extend your wings, you will fly.

Because the culture we breathe and work in rushes against rest. It equates our worth with production and wealth and fame. The more we work toward those goals, the more society assigns us worth.

Growth comes from God, to those with surrendered, yielded hearts.

We may not understand the pathways God lays out before us. We may not even like walking the journey. But even in failure, we can trust that He’ll do more than we expect.

Jesus often calls us to risk. He asks us to be vulnerable, to be authentic, so others can see Him in and through us.

As I look back over my mountains of growth and compare them to the molehills where I stagnated, community often made the difference.

Our task shouldn't be punishing the villains in our lives, but enlarging the God who heals us from all wounds.

An unknown force is calling mePerhaps the voice of that star perched on the last heightPerhaps the desire to see the spaces that conceal Europe

In a free society, how can you commit a crime against yourself?

Religion to me almost like when God leaves – and people devise a set of rules to fill in the space.

I'm young but I'm not stupid.

The prince is never going to come. Everyone knows that; and maybe sleeping beauty's dead.

I wouldn't trade those 10 years for anything. The Navy taught me a lot of things. It molded me as a man, and I made a lot of wonderful friends.

We are always on stage, even when we are stabbed in earnest at the end.

I feel like [God]'s hazing us.

Creeds are not straitjackets, but guardrails that keep us safe.

however many resolutions one makes, one's pen, like water, always finds its own level, and one can't write in any way other than one's own.