After a short labor, and without too much pain (I decided that the pain of delivery was overrated), my son was born.

Stop picking on yourself, worrying if you're good enough, wondering what people will see if you let them see your heart. This is what they'll see: that you are a lovable and delightful soul, a beautiful child of God.

According to Earnie Larsen and others, the two deepest desires most people have are: to love and be loved, and to believe they are worthwhile and know someone else believes that also.1

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angles, but am note nice, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but am not nice, I am nothing. If I give all I posses to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but am not nice, I gain nothing.

God loves you. His chastisements can be painful, but God never turns His back on us. He will discipline us, but He will not forsake us. He will always seek to draw us back to a place where He can bless us once more.

Agape is an obedient response of availability to God, not a feeling. But, although it is not a feeling, its ultimate end is a feeling.

Jesus loves us. He is not scandalized by our failures. He is not limited in what he can do with what's left after family disasters. Nothing is beyond his redemption when he is invited in. No one with a whit of breath left is beyond the reach of his grace.

No matter who you are or what kind of baggage you carry with you, no matter what you look like or feel like, no matter what you do or don't do, God loves you just as you are right now. You don't have to get your act together, lose ten pounds, run a marathon, write a best-selling book, or raise perfect children. You are an extraordinary woman in His sight right now.

If my children think I'm genuine, no one else's opinion matters to me.

In our day and age, the Samaritan woman might have been someone we would condemn. Maybe we would point out the error of her ways rather than reach out to her in love. But what did Jesus do? He loved her enough to talk to her— and then listen. He acknowledged her as a person. Then, and only then, did He begin to instruct her.

By the time we were knit in our mothers' wombs, our lives were like open books before Him--every sentence read, every paragraph indented, every chapter titled, every page numbered. He knew it all in advance--all the sin, all the selfishness, every weakness. Yet He chose to love us--lavishly.

No condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus. Romans 8:1