The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living

by Lacey Sturm

If you don’t look at the cover, you can’t know if the flyleaf is the one in the front or the back of the book. You can’t know if it is the end of the story or the beginning. I think each flyleaf is always both.

noticed the way her freckles—which she despised—looked as random and enchanting as the stars in the universe. God had put them there.

many times goodness in life is appreciated only after trudging through the muddy bogs of our own shortsighted choices. And there, on the other side of the stench, we find the shining gem of the life we were intended to live.

Emotions aren’t wrong, but letting them control your life and sway all your decisions can be deceptive and very destructive.

Memento Mori

We don’t know if we will have tomorrow. Sometimes it takes the scary prospect of cancer for that to really sink in. Sometimes it takes a healthy loved one dying in a car crash. Sometimes it takes going through a complicated pregnancy and giving birth to a healthy baby anyway. But we don’t require the experience of trauma to wake up, listen, believe, and truly live like our lives are precious, fragile gifts.

We make empty wishes upon stars that have already begun to burn away, We add false color to hair that has already begun to grey. We place lively spring flowers at the feet of the dead, And we only voice our most meaningful words on our deathbeds. Why is it that we try so hard to paint colors onto things that have already faded away, Yet we never open our eyes to see the bright hues of today?