Dogwood

I just finished a fantastic book that I thought some of you might enjoy,

Dogwood by Chris Fabry

Thank you Mom for having such good taste in books and for passing them on.
I earmarked several pages that seemed so pertinent to where we sometimes find ourselves..

"Ruthie was the first to tell me that God hadn't abandoned me but was drawing me deeper, calling me out of the shadows, past the abyss, and into the current of his love and mercy...but God hadn't asked me if I wanted to go deeper, and thank you very much, I liked the shallows.  It's easier to play where there's no current.  In the middle you lose your footing, you lose control."

"How do you develop your heart?  You work on it like anything else.  It takes time and effort.  Your heart is like an unplowed field.  Even if you have good soil, you have to work it up and see what's best to plant there.  If you train your heart to see things, to lean towards others, to care about people rather than things, to always take advantage of opportunities to reach out to strangers and sacrifice for your friends, you'll wind up with a good heart."

"Basically life is a dance through a field full of cow manure.  Most people won't even go into the field; they go around it and pretend.  Or they try to tiptoe here and there and stay close to the fence.  They never see that all that fertilizer creates some beautiful flowers and some of the greenest grass you'll ever see."
"So you what, wallow in it?"
"No girl, I put my hip boots on and waltz through the cow pies".

Cheers to hip boots