Quotes from Liz Curtis Higgs

Simply put, Redeeming Love is the most powerful work of fiction you will ever read.

If the Almighty directs our steps, we've no need to look back over our shoulders.

But pleasing to the eye isn't the same as pleasing to God.

Hard times are purposeful, meant to refine and redirect us. They're not arbitrary or random, and they're definitely not cruel.

As writer Elisabeth Elliot phrased it, "The fact that I am a woman does not make me a different kind of Christian, but the fact that I am a Christian does make me a different kind of woman.

Now consider this: the first person to hold the newborn Christ was Mary of Nazareth, and the first person to touch the newly risen Christ, however briefly, was Mary of Magdala. God placed himself in a woman's care when he came to earth, then entrusted a woman to announce his resurrection when he came back to life.

Fun is temporary at best; it's risky, even dangerous, at worst. Joy, on the other hand, was mystery I couldn't seem to decipher.

Lord, what an honor it will be to start the day with you. Give me the strength to lift my head, the courage to lift my heart, the joy to lift my spirits, and the confidence to lift my eyes and see you rising and shining in me.

And consider this: the angel appeared to Mary first, not to her husband-to-be, Joseph. 'She had no status or honor apart from him,' yet Gabriel came to Mary—further proof of how much God values women.

There you are. A simple commandment. Not ten of them, just one: 'Thou shalt not eat.' (Personally, I wish the very first edict from God hadn't involved dieting, don't you?)

With God, it isn't who you were that matters; it's who you are becoming.

Long before silver bells jingled, Christmas lights twinkled, and horse-drawn sleighs went dashing through the snow, God reached down from heaven with the best gift of all. Love, wrapped in swaddling clothes. Hope, nestled in a manger.