She wishes she had time to run around the block once or twice; maybe then she wouldn't feel as if she were about to burn up or shatter.

That was why the Almighty had given us prayer, to distinguish man from animals, to leave the beasts inside of us locked away.

the world has changed: it did not change without your prayers without your faith without your determination to believe in liberation and kindness; without your dancing through the years that had no beat.

Then she added thoughtfully, "And that old woman that turned me off so short got down so bad in the end that she was walking on two sticks." And I knew she was thinking, though she never said it: Here I am today, my eight children healthy and grown and three of them in college and me with hardly a sick day for years. Ain't Jesus wonderful?

Thank you' is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extereme gratitude, humility, understanding.

I remember one time you said your life made you feel so ashamed you couldn't even talk about it to God, you had to write it, bad as you thought your writing was. Well, now I know what you meant. And whether God will read letters or no, I know you will go on writing them; which is guidance enough for me. Anyway, when I don't write to you I feel as bad as I do when I don't pray, locked up in myself and choking on my own heart.

We serve a prayer-hearing and a prayer-answering God, a wonder-working God!" he loved to say. "And answered prayer is one of the ways we experience him."

He wasn't happy. Not yet. He wasn't peaceful, not entirely. But he was grateful for his life and the evidence of God's grace, and for now that was enough.

Before you worry about the world, son, you should be sure your own soul is secure in God.

You may be sitting around waiting for God to change your circumstances. Then you're going to be happy, then your're going to have a good attitude, then you're going to give God praise. But God is waiting on you to get up on the inside. When you do your part, He'll begin to change things and work supernaturally in your life.

Seeds of discouragement cannot take root in a grateful heart.

my joy. That was a great day in my life! Your time is too valuable to worry about pleasing everyone else or making them happy. I know people who spend more time worrying about what others think about them than they do focusing on their own dreams and goals. You've got to get free from that.