It's worth pointing out that Renate didn't just marry a gay drug addict. That would have been bad enough. But she married a gay drug addict whose life was about to go haywire in ways he hadn't previously thought possible.

Once you are born with a handicap, even if the handicap is resolved - as it was in my case - you are left with the benefit of having had it. By contrast, my mother - who had nothing bad happen to her - was a very disabled person. She was an appalling human being who squandered every blessing that God had given her.

No matter what happens, you're always going to have those critics and those haters. You just have to learn how to deal with that. I think I have and accept that.

My first church had seven members in it, and I have to remember, the rent was $225 a month and I worked for Union Carbide and took the check I made from work to pay for the rent to keep the church open.

One of the things is we tend to give up too soon. We get knocked down a couple of times, and we stay down. It's so important to get back up again.

Sometimes God will deliver you from the fire, and other times God will make you fireproof.

until they bump into an obstacle that stymies them. If you encounter a problem with no immediate solution, your response to that situation will take you either up or down. You can lash out at the difficulty, resenting it and feeling sorry for yourself. This will take you down into a pit of self-pity. Alternatively, the problem can be a ladder, enabling you to climb up and see your life from My perspective.

YOU HAVE BEEN ON AN UPHILL JOURNEY for a long time, and you are growing weary. You yearn for some easy days, for a path that is not so steep. But it is the strenuous climbs that take you ever upward—closer and closer to the summit.

December is the toughest month of the year. Others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, October, August, and February.

Only when it is dark enough can we see the stars.

This would be an unbearable world were God to have only a single light, but we may be consoled that God has two lights: a light to guide us in the brightness of the day when hopes are fulfilled and circumstances are favorable, and a light to guide us in the darkness of the midnight when we are thwarted and the slumbering giants of gloom and hopelessness rise in our souls.

Holmes smiled, and clapped Lestrade upon the shoulder. "Instead of being ruined, my good sir, you will find that