Pain dutifully reminds me that the world is terribly imperfect, but it faithfully helps me appreciate the world on those days when it’s a little closer to being perfect.

The greatest battles are not fought winning the war. Rather, they are fought keeping the peace.

The only way to achieve a dream worth dreaming is to accept the reality that each victory that we experience along the way will be preceded by innumerable failures chronically deep and frequently painful. And our ability to deal with these realities are certain to test both the merit of our dream and the depth of our commitment to it.

No, I don’t want to live a fairy-tale life fashioned of pixie-dust and enchanted forests. I would much rather forge a life out of the dust and grime of this soiled existence, for to fashion a life out of materials such as these is truly magic.

It is the storm that I watch so that it will not catch me unawares, when I should be watching God in the storm so that He can catch me in the waves.

Sometimes the path is hidden by the foliage that surrounds us, the trees that have fallen all around us, and the winds that whip the wilderness wild. And while the foliage and the trees and the winds might hide that precious path for a moment, we must remember that God birthed each of us with a destination so utterly amazing that no wilderness possesses the foliage, or the trees, or the winds to ever destroy the path to that destination.

Pain believes itself to be the force that pushes everyone away. But God says that pain is the invitation that He could never throw away.

The cost of success is that I must be willing to fail far more times than I succeed, which is why so few of us are successful.

A father teaches his children that the battle is not determined by the enemy that stands around them, but by the God Who stands within them. And that lesson can only be driven home as they watch their father stand around them, while God stands within their father.