They meet in the girls' bathroom. The last time they were forced to meet in a place like this, they took separate, isolated stalls. Now they share one. They hold each other in the tight space, making no excuses for it. There's no time left in their l...
Hope starts as a promise made to yourself, the first drop of rain in a parched land, the first step onto dry earth for a shipwreck survivor. It is a listening crowd for a lonely heart. What we hope in must be greater than us; therefore, we will alway...
The look in his eyes reminded me of myself. We were both alone in a new environment, trapped by our circumstances, and we both needed to grow up much faster than planned. Who knew that once I’d have something common with a deer.
Let me love you, he said I want to mould that broken heart, To feel the pain the others before I have caused, Walk down the darkness that you walked through, Understand how something so broken can be so beautiful, I need to understand how you manifes...
What ifs” are the doorways into new adventures. “Why nots” are the doorknobs. We turn knobs and tug at doors until we find the one that opens for us. The Maker will leave that one unlocked and when we get to the other side, the light will be on...
The ability to overcome failure--to live through it and move on--is crucial. If we are not willing to face failure--if we don't have the skills to survive it--we have precluded any real creativity or risk. Failure may never become our friend, but if ...
The part that needs healing is our personal life. Personal life has nothing to do with work. Besides, what better way of healing than to find our center of self-sovereignty? Isn't that the whole point of healing?
Christianity enhanced the notion of political and social accountability by providing a new model: that of servant leadership. In ancient Greece and Rome no one would have dreamed of considering political leaders anyone's servants. The job of the lead...
(D)ialogue is generally the worst choice for exposition. 'When you're writing lines...you need to focus on the way people actually talk. And when we talk to each other we never actually explain our terms. We don't say 'Sweetheart, would you pass me t...
I looked at Mommy but quickly shook my head. "I don't want to miss her." Becky put her soft, warm hand on my shoulder, just like Mommy used to when I was upset. "Your mom wants to be here with you. She wants that very much. But Jesus wants her with h...
Our virus is a lot smarter than the ones you see in zombie movies. It doesn't make its victims stagger around slobbering and moaning so anyone in their right minds would run the other way. It gets you cozying up to people so you cough and sneeze it r...
And I was remembering that time in our lives together, the time of those ritual walks. I was remembering the way it feels at just that moment when you begin to turn, when you’re poised exactly between the things in life you want to do and those you...
Resistance makes a man think new thoughts he never considered before. It makes a man ask questions he never asked before. It makes a man seek answers he never sought before. It makes a man beg God for help that he never before realized he needed. The...
He runs his eye along the row of knives in their racks, the cleavers for splitting bones. He picks one up, looks at its edge, decides it needs sharpening and says, "Do you think I look like a murderer? In your good opinion?" A silence. After a while,...
I have come to realize my need to take the New Testament witness seriously that groaning and grief and feeling broken are legitimate ways for me to express my cross-bearing discipleship to Jesus. It's not as if groaning means I am somehow doing somet...
I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude — a feeling ...
Dagmar tried to stand, and Gwenvael caught her hand, pulling her back down. "You can't leave me. I'm tortured and brooding. You need to show me how much you adore me so I can learn to love myself again." "You've never stopped loving yourself." "Becau...
When you have to pretend to be someone, anyone other than yourself. Then you need to make over every part of you. Because just pretending to be someone, anyone other than yourself, you always will be just you. Make over your attitude, your ways, valu...
Do you ever feel like you're on the wrong path in your life? What if I told you there is no wrong path? Every path in your life is always the right path, the perfect path. So I say enjoy the view and appreciate that the path you're on, is leading you...
I spoke of an Army on the point of entering an enemy's territories. Answering the question as to the cause of delay: 'Waiting for supplies.' The answer might also have been: 'Waiting for instructions, 'Waiting for orders.' If the last dispatch had no...
The place trembled with sound. I didn't need to do anything. They would do it all. But you had to be careful. Drunk as they were they could immediately detect any false gesture, any false word. You could never underestimate an audience. They had paid...
