I also praise the cooperative efforts in our pediatric intensive care unit. In fact, this togetherness permeates every aspect of our program here, including our office staff. We're friends, we work well together, we're dedicated to alleviating pain, and we're interested in each other's problems, too. We're a team, and Ben Carson is only part of that team.

I don't believe in being emotionally detached from patients. I work with and operate on human beings, all creatures of God, people in pain who need help. I don't know how I can work on a girl's brain--how I can have her life in my hands--and yet not become involved. I feel particularly strong attachments to children who seem so defenseless and who haven't yet had the chance to live a full life.

Everyone needs to find the one thing that brings out her passion. It's what we do and share with the world that matters. I believe it's important that we leave our communities in better shape than we found them.

We long to find someone who has been where we've been, who shares our fragile places, who sees our sunsets with the same shades of blue. Soul mates. They somehow validate the depth of our experiences.

Your wealth of experience makes you rich. Spend it on hurt people. They need it so badly.

Paul didn't just see emotions. He saw the need they represented.

Sometimes all you could do for the suffering was to make sure they knew someone was suffering right there with them. Someone who had also felt stricken, and smitten, and afflicted.

Commitment to God. From the moment we began to work together, Beth and I discovered a similar commitment. We share a passion for the Word of God and for people—especially for people with hurts.

thick, cozy cloud. We want to believe the best about people in our identity groups, and thankfully, the best is often the truth.

When we meet people flesh to flesh we meet people mess to mess.

Godly accountability is never codependency.

Have we harvested with the margins in mind? Do we intentionally serve people on the edge?