borrowing Paul's words...

"For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of HIS WILL through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For HE HAS RESCUED us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have REDEMPTION, the forgiveness of sins."
-Colossians 1:9-14

**these words have brought an immense amount of comfort to my life these past few days...it is hard for me to fathom that Paul knew how to perfectly and beautifully pray for the Colossians, without having ever met them... if only I could be as faithful in my prayer life with the people that I live along side daily.

a million miles in a thousand years

"I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought and they can’t see the distant shore anymore and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their wife, on their husband, they go looking for an easier story.

Robert McKee put his coffee cup down and leaned onto the podium. He put his hand on his forehead and wiped his grey hair back. He said you have to go there, you know. You have to take your character to the place where they just can’t take it anymore. He looked at us with a tenderness we hadn’t seen in him before. You’ve been there, haven’t you? You’ve been out on the ledge. The marriage is over now, the dream is over now, nothing good can come from this. He got louder.Writing a story isn’t about making your peaceful fantasies come true.The whole point of the story is the character arc. You didn’t think joy could change a person, did you? Joy is what you feel when the conflict is over. But it’s conflict that changes a person. He was shouting now. You put your characters through hell. You put them through hell. That’s the only way we change. "

**  A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller.