God, help me face and solve my problems today. Help me do my part and let the rest go. I can learn to be a problem-solver

Can you still see and hear? Do you have your senses of taste and smell? Can you walk? Run? Do you have a motorized chair if you're unable to walk on your own? Come on—let's get it all on the list. Ask friends or family for help making your list. What do they see you as having? What do they think you're lucky to have? What do they admire in you?

Sometimes things happen, and for a variety of reasons I may not end up where I wanted to go. If I change my mind or problems beyond my control interfere, I find myself doing something other than what I had planned. Timing and exact circumstances may vary. That's okay. I usually end up someplace that's better for me. That's where acceptance, trust, faith, and letting go come in. But at least I'm not driving aimlessly through life.

Freedom is not reserved for those unwilling to fight for it.

Christians have been beaten, whipped, starved, humiliated, mutilated, tortured, hung, burned at the stake, crucified, and fed to lions; yet two thousand years after a man called Jesus of Nazareth walked the streets of Jerusalem, 1,734 million people alive on this earth today call themselves by the ever-dividing, ever-uniting word: Christian. God is still scattering the seeds a few righteous renegades planted in a city called Antioch. Had they only known what they were starting.

The thing about life is that, for most folks, it hurts from the start.

I think we build resilience to prepare for whatever adversity we'll face. And we all face some adversity - we're all living some form of Option B.

I grew up segregated, but there was not much feeling of being shut out of anything.

Where I grew up - I grew up on the north side of Akron, lived in the projects. So those scared and lonely nights - that's every night. You hear a lot of police sirens, you hear a lot of gunfire. Things that you don't want your kids to hear growing up.

The hardship of the exercises is intended less to strengthen the back than to toughen the mind. The Spartans say that any army may win while it still has its legs under it; the real test comes when all strength is fled and the men must produce victory on will alone.

In an odd way," he says, "your making a hash of this has brought you into the club. We've all committed our share of balls-ups. What counts is setting things right and pressing on.

You have never tasted freedom, friend, or you would know it is purchased not with gold, but steel.