Being a Christ follower means being acquainted with sorrow. We must know sorrow to be able to fully appreciate joy. Joy costs pain, but the pain is worth it. After all, the murder had to take place before the resurrection.

Courage isn't about knowing the path, it's about taking the first step.

Do not forget in the darkness what you have been promised in the light.

I believe there is only one truly courageous thing we can do with our lives: to love unconditionally. Absolutely, with all of ourselves, so much that it hurts and then more.

Adoption is a beautiful picture of redemption. It is the Gospel in my living room.

Jesus wrecked my life, shattered it to pieces, and put it back together more beautifully.

Thankfully, God's plans do not seem to be affected much by my own.

We aren't really called to save the world-not even to save one person Jesus does that. We are just called to love with abandon. We are called to enter into our neighbors' sufferings and love them right there.

Poverty is not a sin it is a condition, a circumstance that allows God's work to be displayed.

Thankfully, God's plans also happen to be much better than my own.

People tell me I am brave. People tell me I am strong. People tell me good job. Well here is the truth of it. I am really not that brave, I am not really that strong, and I am not doing anything spectacular. I am just doing what God called me to do as a follower of Him. Feed His sheep, do unto the least of His people.

My heart lives in so many places. With so many people. But God whispers to me that I really have only one home, and that is with Him. I will never be content on this earth. I will always be a nomad. It was meant to be that way. My heart was created with a desire for a home, a nest, a sanctuary, and that can be found only with Him in Heaven.

I will not change the world. Jesus will do that. I can, however, let Him use me to change the world for one person.

The fact that I loved Jesus was beginning to interfere with the plans I once had for my life and certainly with the plans others had for me. My heart had been apprehended by a great love, a love that compelled me to live differently.

We are not called to be safe, we are simply promised that when we are in danger, God is right there with us. And there is no better place to be than in His hands.

I am more more terrified of living a comfortable life in a self-serving society and failing to follow Jesus than I am of any illness or tragedy.

God reminded me how beautiful we all are to Him, after all, we were created in His own image, and He looks at me, at you, in all our sweat and dirt and brokenness, and says, I choose you. You are beautiful.

God doesn't tell us to care for the less fortunate, He demands it.