We were called, male and female, to do great works with separate approaches and separate assignments.

We learn much of parenting from our own parents. My love for my father deepened profoundly when he was kind, patient, and understanding.

Others can challenge and motivate us, but we must reach down deep into our souls and call forth our God-given intelligence and capabilities. We cannot do this when we depend on the efforts of someone else.

Discipleship does not come from positions of prominence, wealth, or advanced learning. The disciples of Jesus came from all walks of life.

Childhood vaccines are one of the great triumphs of modern medicine. Indeed, parents whose children are vaccinated no longer have to worry about their child's death or disability from whooping cough, polio, diphtheria, hepatitis, or a host of other infections.

I have three brothers and one sister, and I'm the third child. Sometimes people say, 'It's only natural you would become a writer - your parents were English professors.' But my four siblings were brought up in the exact same household, and no one else became a writer or an English professor.

I've an enormous respect for my mother who at the age of 39 raised three children, and I grew up with my grandmother in the household. And so it was a really strong household of women - my poor brother! It was great growing up with so many generations of women.

When I was three years old I was taken with my family to a little town in Western Minnesota, where I lived a more or less vapid and ordinary life until I was ten.