You are the designer of your destiny; you are the author of your story.

One of the secrets to life, Epiphany, is to find your gifts and focus on those. Leave your liabilities in the dust of the road not taken. The world is an imperfect place. Everyone struggles. Successful people see trials as growth experiences, rather than stumbling blocks. You have everything you need for success. You're a beautiful young woman, and you're strong, and you have a clever mind. If you let anyone convince you otherwise, you steal from yourself.

We cannot change where God has put us. If we are to bloom at all, we must bloom where we have been planted.

best to be who you is. What you is deep down inside. Ain't no other good way of livin'.

After all, what good is a life saved if you fail to live it?

Take a breath, look around, a voice seemed to be whispering. None of this is here by accident, and neither are you.

People don't come into our lives by accident.

Eventually you have to stop letting people define you and start defining yourself. It's a lesson I'm both teaching and learning. Name yourself. Claim yourself. Classroom Constitution, Article Twelve.

The best thing is to know. I always tell 'em, best to be who you is. What you is deep down inside. Ain't no other good way of livin'.

When I listened to the lady telling her story, I could relate to not being welcome someplace. I liked the idea that God might take that very thing that stunk the worst about your life and change it around into something good.

As writer Elisabeth Elliot phrased it, "The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman.

The parable challenges us to clarify and claim our purpose and live it with absolute earnestness. Our ultimate purpose is Jesus Christ: to know Him, allow Him to love us, love Him in response, and love others as He has loved us. Each of us is called to live out that purpose in the unique circumstances and opportunities of our individual lives. That will mean several crucial things: