Maybe I'm growing up, Thomas'. But there were tears in his voice, and he looked younger than he had ever done.

Every day we choose not to commit suicide we are manifesting our fundamental conviction that life is worth it, despite all the pain we may experience.

Things are never so bad they can't be made worse.

The apostle Paul never seemed to exhaust the topic of grace - what makes us think we can? He just kept coming at it and coming at it from another angle. That's the thing about grace. It's like springtime. You can't put it in a single sentence definition, and you can't exhaust it.

A champion is not defined by their wins but how they recover when they fall.

But Jesus answered me with these words and said: Sin is necessary, but all will be well, and all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.

Augustine of Hippo: "In affliction, then, we do not know what it is right to pray for. Because affliction is difficult, troublesome and against the grain for us, weak as we are, we do what every human would do. We pray that it may be taken away from us. However, if he does not take it away, we must not imagine that he has forgotten us. In this way, power shines forth more perfectly in weakness.

May the Lord bless us and keep us from all harm, and may God lead us to eternal life. Amen.

Grace gets the last word.

If you find yourself right now in a place where you are heartbroken, I want to remind you that Christ is very close to the broken. Our culture throws broken things away, but our Savior never does. He gently gathers all the pieces, and with His love and in His time, He puts us back together.

We can walk through the darkest night with the radiant conviction that all things work together for the good.

It is a blessed thing to know that no power on earth, no temptation, no human frailty can dissolve what God holds together.