Although it is easy to imagine happiness as the upwards turn on this haphazard rising and falling of emotion which is life, but really it is a foundation of strength of character and inner balance that precipitates peace, a foundation that is slowly built or slowly chipped away. There are times when it may seem that the foundation of happiness is broken, but as the dust settles and the debris is cleared away, we find that the storm has only covered it, still leaving everything we have built in place. True happiness is forged in the furnace of perseverance, fortitude, hope and love. It is not burned or broken by the heat, rather it is made unbreakable—it becomes eternal. Life is the fuel for this purifying fire.

— Michael Brent Jones

Are you really a doctor?” I asked.“Some people say that.”“Why?”“Because I went to medical school.”“Did you not finish?” I asked hesitantly.“I finished.”“So…?”“So sometimes I work as a doctor.”“So doesn’t that make you a doctor?”“I guess, but I also worked as a baker, construction worker, and a bunch of other things. Either way I just prefer being known as Jack. I mean Dr. Baker Jack Hammer Jack, would be entertaining, but I think also a little weird.

— Michael Brent Jones

Don’t worry if love is not a perfect fairy tale—it should be fun and exciting, but not without a few hiccups. Love won't be without hardships or disappointment, without sacrifice or sorrow, because love cannot be without faith and growth. Marry someone that you want to make happy, that you want to serve, and that you want to share everything with, someone that you want to make laugh, someone that you want to hold. One of the biggest problems in a relationship is people feeling scared to give someone access to their unguarded heart, which is silly because in reality it is quite the opposite, there is a safety and enabling power in being honest and open.

— Michael Brent Jones

Every word appears in our mind as a composite of everything else we associate with it. We by default personify every word, because in each of our minds, when we think of a certain person, there is one word that is the biggest part of that composite image. If I said swimming, singing or story telling each word is personified by someone different in each of our minds. It is very important to not let hate, treachery or any negative thing be personified by anyone in our mind, also not to give any reason that we would personify them in someone else’s mind. Any space in our hearts we allow hate to occupy, is space that could be filled with love. There will come a time in every person’s life, when they realize they are woefully wanting in the love they have cultivated in their heart. How amazing to think of the contrary: that you personified love in someone’s mind. What better compliment could we ever hear, than for someone to say, that we are their personification of love? I think it’s something that is not too often said, but oh that it was, and more, that there were more reason to say it. My wish is that every person could wake up in the morning with a prayer, that they may have the courage, diligence and desire to love more truly, sincerely and objectively; that every night we reflect on what we may have represented by our thoughts, words and deeds,” Jefferson concluded.

— Michael Brent Jones

He held out his arms and I ran to embrace him. It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel my sorrows anymore, it was as if they were never there. I felt safe, and loved. There were no words exchanged, we just held each other.

— Michael Brent Jones

Hopefully not by sad experience, you will find that some interactions most private, can be the coldest and most closed off, and some interactions seemingly common or casual can be the most intimate.

— Michael Brent Jones

I’d like to share with you a parable: the parable of Bob the Angel. A girl was walking down a darkly lit city street late at night. A man jumped out from the shadows and attacked her, suddenly she was suffocating and disoriented as hands clasped around her neck and the force of his attack started to push her down. She tried to yell as she struggled to pull his arms from her neck while she crumpled backwards to the ground, “God. . . Help me!” The next thing she remembers—just as the fear consumed her, and right as she disappeared into the misery and despair of helplessness—was a loud crash and an explosion of glass which rained down upon her and her attacker. The assailant’s lifeless body was suspended above her, held from collapsing on her by an unknown force, and then pulled away from hovering over her and dropped onto the pavement beside her. She opened her eyes in the faint shadowy light, to see black matted hair and a long, black beard framing the eyes of a man. The smell of alcohol on his breath would have knocked her out if the adrenaline was not still trilling through her veins. There he stood, God’s angel, off-kilter and drunk, with a broken whiskey bottle in his hand. “You probably shouldn’t be walking through here this late at night,” was all he said as he turned away.”Wait! What’s your name?” she asked, still stunned half sitting up on the ground. All she heard as he walked away was his trailing voice calling, “Bob’s as good as any. . . .” An angel is a messenger, and sometimes we only want letters sent in white envelopes with beautiful gold print, when sometimes a simple “no” on the back of a gum wrapper is what we are offered. Every postcard from heaven does not come with a picture of the sunset there, nor should it. If it is an answer we want, an answer we will get. As far as pretty postcards, there are many others willing to send us that. If not harps and gold-tipped wings, what then is the mark of an angel? An answer which pierces your soul, and which inspires a question that invites you to look outside yourself and up to God. God is very objective; He wants to make us think, to engage the faculties we have been given, and to learn from the messengers he sends us. He wants us in the ark before the flood; he could come himself—or send a Noah—but most of the time he sends Bob. Bob is in you, Bob is in me, Bob is in the emotionalized, sarcastic, mocking, patronizing, proud or foolish person which points out meaningful things to us in the worst possible moments, or in the worst possible way.

— Michael Brent Jones

If there is any one person you can't love, then you don't understand love. The bitter cup we have to drink is the dregs of humility; we must see past the outer shells of insecurity to the seed of divinity deep inside each one of us. No one virtue is strong enough to stand on its own. No one vice is simple enough not to lead to all others. No one person can appreciate and support us as much as we need. No one event is enough to tear apart our lives. What does this all mean? We have to give everything, or we will have nothing. We cannot take any shortcuts. Furthermore, we have to love everyone, or we cannot truly love anyone. No excuse will mean anything to us in the end. People are beautiful, don’t forget that. Don’t let pomp and circumstance, society or folklore fool you with counterfeit beauty. True beauty is usually not something you can see, but something you feel; something that inspires you.

— Michael Brent Jones

In the body there are two creatures, and they are both in enmity with each other. For one to do anything, the other has to be subjected to it. One has a mind and the other only has an appetite. The more the mind gets, the more it is satisfied, but the more the appetite gets, the more its hunger grows; its appetite is for imaginary things, it dreams that it is eating, but when it wakes, which it dreads to do, it is empty and pangs.

— Michael Brent Jones

It is not you that is flawed or broken, it is the space in your heart yet to be filled, that has been given to guilt that takes away the strength you needed to overcome the trials ahead of you. That is not evil… it’s mortal. And the real us, is born in a shell of mortality like a bird, and just like that bird, once that shell is broken away, we will spread our wings and fly away, leaving far behind shards of triumphed and discarded insecurities.

— Michael Brent Jones