Stress isn’t only a joy stealer. The way we respond to it can be sin.

That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To...

The real problem of life is never a lack of time. The real problem of life – in my life – is lack of thanksgiving.

Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in...

Instead of filling with expectations, the joy-filled expect nothing–and are filled.

I speak the unseen into seeing and I can feel it, this steady breathing in the rhythm of grace–‘give thanks (in), give thanks (out)’.

Communion, by necessity, always leads us into community.

Counting one thousand gifts means counting the hard things — otherwise I’ve miscounted.

Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen...

Trauma’s storm can mask the Christ and feelings can lie. I draw all the hurting voices close and I tough their scars with a whisper: sometimes we don’t fully see that in Christ, because of...

Is the height of my chara joy dependent on the depths of my eucharisteo thanks?

That is what a shadow is, and empty space, a hole in the light. Evil is this – a hole in the goodness of God.

Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.

Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.

Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn’t rescue the suffering the converse does. The brave who focus and all things good and all things beautiful to give thanks for it and discover...

We ‘have’ all received on grace after another, but we only recognize the glory of God in this moment ‘when we wake to the one grace after another’.

Wherever you are, be all there.” I have lived the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because here-time asks me to do the hardest of all:...

While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.

Trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks.

I receive grace. And through me, grace could flow on. Like a cycle of water in continuous movement, grace is meant to fall, a rain…again, again, again. I could share the grace, multiply the joy,...

True saints know that the place where all the joy comes from is far deeper than that of feelings; joy comes from the place of the very presence of God. Joy is God and God...

How to ‘live’ in a state of awe when life is mundane and ordinary?

Can God be counted on? Count blessings and find out how many of His bridges have already held.

The practice of giving thanks…eucharisteo…this is the way we practice the presence of God, stay present to His presence, and it is always a practice of the eyes. We don’t have to change what we...

With memories of gravestones, of combing fingers through tangled hair, I wonder too … If the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world, and our own emptiness, might...

Satan’s sin becomes the first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude.

This day is not a sieve, losing time. With each passing minute, each passing year, there’s this deepening awareness that I am filling, gaining time. We stand on the brink of eternity.

Start with a simple request, making it the refrain of your day: ‘God, open the eyes of my heart.’ This journey must be Spirit-led, every day.

I glance back in the mirror to the concrete bridge, the one I’ve boldly driven straight across without second thought, and I see truth reflecting back at me: Every time fear freezes and worry writhes,...

When it gets dark, it’s only because god has tucked me in a cleft of the rock and covered me, protected, with His hand? In the pitch, I feel like I’m falling, sense the bridge...

Joy is a flame that glimmers only in the palm of the open and humble hand. In an open and humble palm, released and surrendered to receive, light dances, flickers happy. The moment the hand...

The only way to fight a feeling is with a feeling.

Count blessings and discover Who can be counted on.

How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can’t I give...

I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I’ve seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of...

Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.

Every moment I live, I live bowed to something. And if I don’t see God, I’ll bow down before something else.

He means to rename us–to return us to our true names, our truest selves. He means to heal our soul holes. From the very beginning, that Eden beginning, that has always been and always is,...

When bridges seem to give way, we fall into Christ’s safe arms, true bridge, and not into hopelessness. It is safe to trust! We can be too weak to go on because His strength is...

Who trusts the Bridge Builder when you wake to snow on your blankets and winter blasting through cracked walls and dinner for four is a fifty cent box of Kraft Dinner rationed in half and...

I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all the days before I die, the moments before I sleep.

The joy of small that makes life large.

Do I really smother my own joy because I believe that anger achieves more than love?

Sometimes, too often, I don’t want to muster the energy. Stress and anxiety seem easier.

Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will.

The whole of the life — even the hard — is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live...

Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.

All those years thinking I was saved and had said my yes to God, but was really living the no.

Practice is the hardest part of learning, and training is the essence of transformation.

Life is so urgent it necessitates living slow.