“If my ex-husband could move on, I could, too. I would search for my gardener, someone who would help me to grow and bloom, but who would recognize the fragility of a new flower just starting to poke out of the ground.If I was lucky, he’d have a long cultivator.”

“I was just reminding myself that I could get over heartbreak if it happened another time. ... I'll be back again.Yes, I would be back. I could take chances with my heart and I would be able to bounce back, and anything that might hurt me would just make me stronger in the end.And I did deserve everything I wanted-- somebody who would appreciate me, someone I could trust, someone who liked me for me.”

“I could take chances with my heart and I would be able to bounce back, and anything that might hurt me would just make me stronger in the end. And I did deserve everything I wanted-somebody who would appreciate me, somebody I could trust, someone who liked me for me.”

“As a teenager I clearly remember mornings when I was getting ready for school when something would -just still me- and I would lean forward and peer very intensely into the eyes of the girl in that mirror. who is that? I didn't know . I looked into those eyes as if they had the answer to who I am or who I could be." So I would search the depths of those green and blue flecked eyes. Calmly searching the eyes of this stranger as if I thought that if I looked deep enough, or long enough, I would find the answer to why I was even here.I didn't know what I know now. That I could only find out my identity,who I waswhen I stopped looking into my own eyesand instead searched in the eyes of Jesus. Only He could REALLY tell me who I am. Who I can be. Who I will be...”

“I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.”

“During the day I would move my body to the rhythm that only I could hear. I would try and connect with everything in my surroundings thinking that it somehow connected to who I was and was secretly sending me messages about what was in my soul.”