Some days, doing "the best we can" may still fall short of what we would like to be able to do, but life isn't perfect--on any front--and doing what we can with what we have is the most we should expect of ourselves or anyone else.
When we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong with the fearful, the true mixed in with the façade, and of course, the only way we can do it is by accepting ourselves that way.
One of the most important gifts a parent can give a child is the gift of accepting that child's uniqueness.
There is no normal life that is free of pain. It's the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus to our growth.
We want to raise our children so that they can take a sense of pleasure in both their own heritage and the diversity of others.
"You are special, and so is your neighbor”— that part is essential: that you're not the only special person in the world. The person you happen to be with at the moment is loved, too.
In the grand scheme of things, shining moments are as brief as the twinkling of an eye, yet such twinklings are what eternity is made of--moments when we human beings can say "I love you," "I'm proud of you," "I forgive you," "I'm grateful for you." That's what...
Parents don't come full bloom at the birth of their first baby. In fact, parenting is about growing. It's about our own growing as much as our children's growing, and that kind of growing happens little by little.
If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.
As different as we are from one another, as unique as each one of us is, we are much more the same than we are different. That may be the most essential message of all, as we help our children grow toward being caring, compassionate, and charitable adults.