It’s a paradox of the spiritual life that when we give out of our emptiness, God will fill us.

There’s a reason Psalm 51 is the best known of the Penitential Psalms and one of the best-loved psalms of all. It speaks to the deep pain we feel inside us when we sin, and then it shows us the mercy of God. His is the love of a Father who sees his child’s stricken face – washes the tears away – and then reaches inside to create in us “a clean heart;” to breathe “a new and right spirit” within us.

In the end, beauty isn’t measured by physical features but by our likeness to the One in whose image we’re created. So do we measure ourselves against others, then manipulate our beauty to form our own image? Or do we see ourselves as God sees us and allow him to mold us into his likeness? God wants to make us ‘good’ in the Genesis 1 sense of the word. Not a goody-two-shoes, afraid-to-do-anything-wrong sort of good. A beautiful, magnificent good that’s terrible in its splendor.

Nothing can separate us from [God’s] love, and he has a way of turning even the blackest situations (think of the Cross!) into occasions of life and glory.

God always can bring a greater good out of a bad situation, even a terribly evil one

By borrowing this language from {Old Testament] scripture, Luke shows us that what was from the start a distinguishing feature of God's people—his presence among them in the Ark of the Covenant—was only a hint of the far more marvelous truth. Mary is a "new Ark" through which not only God's glorious presence but also God himself in the flesh comes to live in and with his people!

God doesn’t have visiting hours, neither does he sleep. He’s there whenever we need him.

The Psalms are a school of prayer in which we can learn to gather our troubles, fears, inadequacies, and needs and take them to the One who loves us. With confidence, we can cry with the psalmist, "O Lord, make haste to help me!

There's a reason Psalm 51 is the best known of the Penitential Psalms and one of the best-loved psalms of all. It speaks to the deep pain we feel inside us when we sin, and then it shows us the mercy of God. His is the love of a Father who sees his child's stricken face — washes the tears away — and then reaches inside to create in us "a clean heart;" to breathe "a new and right spirit" within us.

Because of God's immense love for us we can throw ourselves on him in our pain, whatever its source, even in the self-inflicted pain of sin. We can cry, we can yell, we can beg like a child who screams "Mo...m!" at the first sign of trouble, who assumes she can and will help. God can and will help, and he wants to.