Well, that's one of the paradoxes of life. You can't have it all. You can have some of this and some of that or all of this and none of that. We make the trade-offs we think are best at the time

I understood that feeling of regret, the sense that there was a moment when the paths divided and you chose one over the other.

The most important endeavors require a risk.

Most of the time when we got a tough row to plow, the Good Lord makes us fall a little short and puts another mule in the pasture. You don't never know whether you're the blind mule or the deaf mule, but you're always one or the other.

Sometimes you need that soft place to fall. That's your family, your faith. The stuff that doesn't change when everything else does.

We can never really know, except in hindsight, how prayers will be answered.

chance on foreign territory.

Life happens, Lindsey. It just......does. the fact that you didn't plan something doesn't mean it's going to end in disaster. Let loose a little bit before you kill yourself. have a little faith.

Tightening my fingers, I held on. "Honey, the farther you go in life, the more you realize that most people aren't trying to hurt anybody. They're just trying to . . . get by. People don't always make the right decisions—even the people we love. I know Jake loves us. He's just trying to . . . find his way right now.

Every decision you make in life has benefits and consequences. Sometimes you just have to go on faith, and even that comes at a price. It means you have to give up the idea that you're the one in charge

What can't be understood and neatly sewn up must simply be let go, not in the way of giving up, but in the way of understanding who is really in control of it.

often it is our narrow focus that limits us, she is saying. When we look only at our own plans, we miss the infinite possibilities of a greater plan.