The Christian experiences and lives a paradox. He possesses joy in sorrow, fulfillment in exile, light in darkness, peace in turmoil, consolation in dryness, contentment in pain and hope in desolation.

A Protestant has seldom any mercy shown him, and a Jew, who turns Christian, is far from being secure.

That's correct, I flunked out of high school twice because I couldn't write.

Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

God doesn't promise to keep the storm away, but He says He'll be with me through it. My faith won't protect me from the loss, but it will carry me and keep me from despair.~page 195

God is in the storm. Though the winds blow, and my life feels torn apart, if I can just trust Him, I'll discover Him at the center.

Yep. Be. Believe. Hold on. Stand. Our best hope in the middle of confusion and chaos is not to try and solve our problems ourselves but to simply remember whose we are and who we hope in. You stay rooted in the middle of a storm—darkness, confusion, chaos—by putting your focus on the One who is stronger than the storm.

It's not what happens to us, it's how we respond. Being broken, being empty is part of life. But how we fill up those empty places, how we heal - that's what matters.

I'm having a rotten day. First I lock myself out of the house, then I rip my skirt climbing through the window, then Macy's computer eats my layaway. And now, old Noah here won't start.

Don't feel sorry for me.

There is no better test of character than a man's treatment of difficulties. The coward shuns them; the lazy man tries to go around them; the idler dawdles in front of them, waiting like Micawber for something to turn up or some miracle to remove them; the baby-man waits for some friend to lift him over them ; but the manly man surmounts them.

What of the man who has neither the time, nor the inclination to study failure in search of knowledge that may lead to success? Where, and how is he to learn the art of converting defeat into stepping stones to opportunity?