If we reflect on the most beautiful moments of our lives, we are often blind to the manifested pain that accompanied them because beauty eclipses pain in retrospect. 

Emily Rogers On a mission trip to Alaska, Emily and her team knocked on strangers' doors to invite them to a bible study. Behind one, a woman was seriously contemplating suicide. Emily literally knocked, and the door was opened to her and to a life changing trip.

Carissa Knowd. Loving another is a risk. You risk feeling the sting of sad heart. You risk losing momentary happiness to help another gain eternal happiness; however, while that fleeting sadness you may feel hurts, truly loving one another gives your heart new life.

Sarah Conrad After a four and a half year relationship abruptly ended with a phone call, Sarah was left with a diamond ring and a broken heart. Her only source of solace? The cross.

Jess Dubois Each of us has a wilderness, a desert into which God will call us...and it will happen at the most inconvenient time.

Someone was thinking of us. And that's a beautiful truth, and that white envelope and the contents within its belly is a beautiful proof.

It is time to get angry. Fuel is continuously added to my fire. I am angry that so many women are struggling with their self worth, and destroying their body, health and soul while they cope. I am not mad at the women, but I am mad at Satan for telling these lies over and over again.

Everybody has different standards of modesty, and – wait for it – that’s okay. The Church has never defined what types of clothing are acceptable, and for good reason.

Hit with depression and a sense of living two different lives, Topher Darragh struggled to become a man who was "fully alive," but four years at a Catholic university and a tattoo changed all of that. Read Topher's encouragement to imitate Christ at college...and risk it all for His love.

By Emily Rogers The devil is constantly saying those same words to us to imprison us within the confines of our minds.  He spits in our face the very same foul, seething words, “You think you can, but you can’t!” 

Beth Puleo Her world was rocked when a persistent brain tumor kept fighting against her as a child, but Beth fought harder. Radiation poisoned her, doctors told her she wouldn't live, and she had to quietly watch her father die as her own life seemed to be slipping away.  

Know, please please please know, that greater things are yet to come. God has great things in store for you, and yes, you will cry a lot until then. And yes, it truly and magnificently sucks.

This novella which put Henry James on the map, author of The Turn of the Screw, presented America with either its greatest literary flirt or holy innocent...and debates on Daisy's character still get vicious in university classrooms.

The following excerpt is taken from David Bates's blog, Restless Pilgrim.  "Friends First" is a thoughtful blog post on why Bates believes it best to forgo this dating approach. I think the majority of us women will agree that it's easier to argue for this approach. It makes total sense. But Bates points out some fatal pitfalls.

The following excerpt is taken from David Bates's blog, Restless Pilgrim.  "True Love Waits...and waits..." is a thoughtful blog post on why dating seems to be on the back burner of many men's agenda.

Christopher Abel, a Protestant seminarian, attempts to answer the question that plague many of us: "When should we fight for what we want? And when should we wait for God to act? " This article, published on ze awesome Relevant.com, was released in September 2013.

63 Things to Do Before You Die

I fell in love with John Green this past summer when I listened to The Fault in Our Stars as I drove back and forth from New Jersey (a 3.5 hour drive), crying behind the wheel at what I’ve dubbed, ‘The New Walk to Remember.’

Love is a mystery that transforms everything it touches into things beautiful and pleasing to God.  The love of God makes a soul free.  She is like a queen; she knows no slavish compulsion; she sets about everything with great freedom of soul, because the love which dwells in her incites her to action. 

We all do it, too. We update our friends on new names we like, we contemplate themes for our big families (are flower names...Rose, Lilly...to hippie for middle names?), we scribble new ideas on napkins so we can add it to the list, and we are all in agreement that the future hubby will just have to deal with the names we chose five years in advance.