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You can't be connected with God until you're at peace with who you are. If you're still upset that God gave you this body or this life or this family or these circumstances, you will never be able to connect with God in a healthy, thriving, sustainable sort of way. You'll be at odds with your maker. And if you can't come to terms with who you are and the life you've been given, you'll never be able to accept others and how they were made and the lives they've been given. And until you're at peace with God and those around you, you will continue to struggle with your role on the planet, your part to play in the ongoing creation of the universe. You will continue to struggle and resist and fail to connect.

-Rob Bell, SexGod

Mary [the virgin] did not always understand. But one does not have to understand to be obedient. Instead of understanding - that intellectual understanding we are so fond of - there is a feeling of rightness, of knowing, knowing things which we are not yet able to understand.

During the question-and-answer period after a lecture, a young woman said to me, "I read A Wrinkle in Time when I was eight or nine. I didn't understand it, but I knew what it was about."

As long as we know what it's about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain.

-Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art