“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.”

I’ve read that if an avalanche buries you and you’re lying there underneath all that snow, you can’t tell which way is up or down. You want to dig yourself out but pick the wrong way, and you dig yourself to your own demise.

But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.

A sudden happiness catches me unawares. I feel it trickling into me, and my eyes go liquid with gratitude and hope.

But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.

But time, it is like charm. You never have as much as you think.

I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away.

I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away.

And every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan.

I want to tear myself from this place, from this reality, rise up like a cloud and float away, melt into this humid summer night and dissolve somewhere far, over the hills. But I am here, my legs blocks of concrete, my lungs empty of air, my throat burning. There will be no floating away.

And every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan.

And every day I thank [God] that I am alive, not because I fear death, but because my wife has a husband and my son is not an orphan.

Hills that stand soft and a sky that stands high and blue, and the sun setting behind a windmill, and always, always, hazy strings of mountains that fall and fall away on the horizon.

Years later, I learned an English word for the creature that Assef was, a word for which a good Farsi equivalent does not exist: sociopath.

I’m gladly doing my own thing for the time being.

I laughed. Partly at the joke, partly at how Afghan humor never changed. Wars were waged, the Internet was invented, and a robot had rolled on the surface of Mars, and in Afghanistan we were still telling Mullah Nasruddin jokes.

It always hurts more to have and lose than to not have in the first place.

Learn from your mistakes. Take responsibility and forgive yourself.

A person cannot forget someone who is good to them.

To forgive the terrorists is up to God, but to send them to him is up to me.

Once you get to the point where you are proud of yourself, you need to forgive yourself for all of the fucked up shit you did.

Forgiveness liberates the soul, it removes fear.

Love yourself- accept yourself- forgive yourself and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.

Don’t allow shame to ruin your “today” let the forgiveness of Jesus take over and watch your life blossom into all that God has designed you to be.

God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.