Transformation

Transformation is always from within. It is never painless because it asks you to leave what is familiar. It rocks the world you've always known.

Brave

I can be brave because I know Someone's got my back.

My own take on why Jesus chose to die on the cross

I really feel uncomfortable with the phrase "through the cross Jesus won pardon for our sins" because it seems to show a tyrannical God whose wrath has to be appeased in such a violent way.
Rather I'd like to believe that the cross shows to us the extent to which God loves us.
With Jesus assuming the lowest of conditions a human being can ever reach, the shameful death on the cross, God shows us that there is no sin that is unpardonable, that everything and all time are included in God's big embrace.

Not silver or gold, but Jesus

As a follower of Jesus, I do not pretend to have the solution to all the problems of the world. God does not give us a clear-cut perfect response and easy solutions to our problems and doubts. Come to think of it, if God does that, it would be a downright insult to us whom He has made in His image and likeness, hence, thinkers and creators like Him.
We are not puppets in the hands of a puppet master.
Instead, what Jesus gives us is perspective, a higher purpose, a greater scheme. He gives meaning to our lives, a meaning that surpasses what is sensible.
And this is the gift that we are called to share with others.

To believe is to see

To have faith is to see God in the most ordinary places and events. To have faith is to have a special connection with God that enables us to see Him in His many disguises, to go beyond our schemes or expectations of how God should be. When Mary Magdalene first saw Jesus after the resurrection, she didn't recognize him. She thought He was a gardener. But when He called her "Mary", she recognized the "Lord".

Brave women

Jesus' mother, Mary, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary of Magdala, Veronica, the unnamed women of Jerusalem... Yes, these women will forever be honored whenever we commemorate the passion and death of Jesus.
In the midst of chaos, of the unthinking mob, of cowardice, of the perversion of truth, these women walked with Jesus and stayed with Him at the foot of the cross.
These brave women show that there is a spark of courage in the human spirit.
Even in the darkest moments of passion-gone-berserk, there is in each one of us the capacity to be compassionate in a suffering fellow human being.
It is the truest truth of who we are.

Insults

Resorting to insults is an admission that we have run out of reasonable arguments.