Francie always remembered what that kind teacher told her. “You know, Francie, a lot of people would think that these stories that you’re making up all the time were terrible lies because they are not the truth as people see the truth. In the fut...
Nothing - not prestige, power or pride - is worth sacrificing the things that you truly want, the things that you truly love. "Don't be afraid to take time and smell the roses. Don't hesitate in seeking out those things you hold dear. Seeking them ou...
I make a joke of it, but... but I'm afraid of death." He straightened up and turned to look into Joseph's eyes. Joseph saw the fear there and was shocked by the intensity of it. "Are you afraid to die, Joseph?" Joseph considered for a moment, then sh...
To avoid the hard necessity of either obeying or rejecting the plain instructions of our Lord in the New Testament we take refuge in a liberal interpretation of them. We evangelicals also know how to avoid the sharp point of obedience by means of fin...
Miracles come from love. Miracles come from a seed of hope, a glimpse, a vision of something beautiful that makes our heart sing, something we can fall in love with so much that we are willing to trust and listen to inspiration. We can act on what we...
Grandpa always used to make me ride in the bed of his pickup truck, so he could keep up his conversations with the 100-pound sack of manure he kept buckled up in the passenger seat. Grandpa said all they ever talked about was grass, but I know Grandp...
She smiled. She was happy, yet sad. Life had never been more bittersweet. She looked at the sunset. The pink sky was sinking into the deep blue ocean. It was almost as if the sky knew it was making a mistake, digging its own grave. But for a moment t...
The other problem is that she hasn’t arrived.” “Oh, yeah? And who is she?” “Well, she is a remarkable, funny, classy woman who can say the word fuck without being trashy. She makes me laugh, is ambitious, loves me because I’m nice, not in...
I would like to coin the phrase alimentary theology, a theology that is more attentive to and welcoming of the multiple layers contained and implied in the making of theology. This is a theology that not only pays closer attention to matters related ...
I do believe Jesus died so we could feel freed up to go after life to the full, so we would feel equpped to take risks and not beat ourselves up when we fail. He didn't die to make our lives look perfect. He died so we could stop feeling as if our li...
Wolves regularly attacked their rivals in power, so the idea of killing to gain position was neither alien nor repulsive to her. The use of assassins she had filed as yet another of the curious tools - like swords and bows — that humans created to ...
Truth is in our blood. It is the essennce of our being. It is the best part of us, the core of what makes us human. It is our soul, our fundamental genetic beauty, and our spirit. We were created perfect, and despite the inevitability that we loose s...
The flimsy little protestations that mark the front gate of every novel, the solemn statements that any resemblance to real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, are fraudulent every time. A writer has no other material to make his people ...
When you say to yourself, 'I am going to have a pleasant visit or a pleasant journey,' you are literally sending elements and forces ahead of your body that will arrange things to make your visit or journey pleasant....Our thoughts, or in other words...
..she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know exactly. Her breath was gusty and short. She knew things that nobody ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. .. She knew the world was a st...
Well, but you affirm that virtue is only elicited by temptation; - and you think that a woman cannot be too little exposed to temptation, or too little acquainted with vice, or anything connected therewith – It must be, either, that you think she i...
Regret and pangs of conscience are feelings we assign to others to make the world seem a little more fair, to even things out a little and provide consolation. In reality, those who do wrong to us never think about us as much as we think about them, ...
The problem with the 'masculinity crisis' is not that women have excelled too much and therefore created a crisis for men, but that we have such a stein inability to let go of what it has traditionally meant to be a man...As long as we perpetuate the...
Which is an interactive sport for our family, since Gil likes to groan over the writing and point out the plot twists ahead of time, and Jeremy tears his hair out over the historical inaccuracies, and Dad makes corny jokes, till Mom reminds us, loudl...
Remember that our Heavenly Father knows us perfectly and knows what's best for us . . . . Surely, His knowledge is greater than ours. We just have to have faith in Him. If we don't, well, that doesn't change what happened, it just makes us more miser...
I hoped for a miracle, but most of all, I hoped for someone to truly understand what I was going through. I can't make you live longer, I can't stop you from hurting but I can give you one wish as someone did for me. My wish helped me find purpose, f...
