“How long this world will suffer, how long I will suffer… Do you hear my cries? Do you know the brokenness?”...

My trials and suffering feel like the squashing of color and blurring of lines to the point that my portrait isn’t the perfect and skilled mimesis of what the world expects. Yet, there is so much more depth, so much more character. ...

Even in this chapter, of this overwhelming book, we see how all of scripture is brought together to accomplish the same plan that has been laid out in the Bible all along. ...

I don’t have to deny or hide my weakness because the beauty of them is they point to a God who promises to make me new....

Adam and Eve based their hope on Cain, as a result of an incomplete and flawed understanding of God’s promised redemption....

The tree of knowledge of good and evil represents the fall of men and the tree of life reflects the way God designed us to exist. Between these two trees, there stands the tree that Jesus died on to pay the price of the fall and reconcile us to God. ...

I sit there and soak it up with a candle lit and music playing, because the orderliness of the house makes me feel in control and relaxed for the 5 minutes that it stays that way. Maybe heaven will smell like cleanliness and soap... ...

It is so tempting to pray for circumstances to change, to get mad at God when they don’t, and to hold a grudge of resentment rather than “accept with serenity” the things that cannot be changed. ...