Inspiration

"The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitants of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics."

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

In high school I was always self-conscious about my height.

Once, a lifeguard asked me out. I had never stood next to him and didn't know how tall he was, so the night of the date I took out two pairs of shoes, one with heels, one flat. I arranged with my brother to answer the door, compare his height with my dates, and run upstairs to let me know which pair of shoes to wear.

When heard the doorbell, I waited. Then my brother showed up and told me what I didn't want to hear: "Go bare-footed."

Stressing the importance of a good vocabulary, the teacher told her young charges, "Use a word ten times, and it shall be yours for life."

From somewhere in the back of the room, came a small male voice chanting, "Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda, Amanda."

"We are not responsible for the circumstances we are in, but we are responsible for the way we allow those circumstances to affect us; we can either allow them to get on top of us or we can allow them to transform us into what God wants us to be."

- Oswald Chambers