1 . I will never forget the darkness, the pain and strong desire to escape.

November _______ grey and busy, and going into an even more stressful December, I was filled with _______ thoughts.

On Saturday, I watched a TV program teaching _______ , and then I started to learn. By the end of the weekend, I had a dining room table covered with sweet treats. I packaged them up in tins, attached a label to each of them _______ "winter love" on it, and dropped them off on a few of my _______ porches(门廊)before work. It shocked me _______ it lightened my mood, seeing a small _______ lost on a porch.

The thanks I received later from the neighbors made me light up. It felt so good, and it distracted me from my dark _______ .

By January I had _______ a routine: On Sunday I'd bake cookies and package them up, and on Monday I'd deliver them. Every week I ________ a few different people to my delivery route, baked a few different kinds of cookies.

Then things started ________ on my doorstep—a homemade cup, a pair of socks with tiny cookies and ________ a gift certificate(礼券)from the local bookstore. Every single one warmed my heart. ________ what I really appreciated was how people began to share their own stories of mental health with me. There is no greater ________ than to be trusted with another's life. I was overwhelmed by the love and care of my community. It humbled(使感到卑微)me that something so ________ had created such incredible kindness. It ________ me that there was good in me, in my neighbors, in the world.

I was shifting into a new season of light, while letting go of a season of darkness. What had begun ________ an attempt to bring light into my own darkness had been transformed into a story more beautiful than I could have ________ dreamed. It reminded me that there is ________ being kind and that life is hard, but there is a quiet strength in knowing you are not ________.

2 . I believe in miracles (奇迹) because I’ve seen so many of them. One day, a patient was referred to me who was one hundred and two years old. “There’s a ___________ in my upper jaw,” she said, “I told my own dentist it’s nothing, but he ___________ I come to see you.”

Her eighty-year-old son accompanied her. He would ___________ to add something, but she stopped him. She wanted to tell everything herself. I found a large cancer that spread over much of the ___________ of her mouth. A careful examination later ___________ that it was a particularly bad sort of cancer.

During her next appointment, I explained to her the ___________ of the problem. She clasped my hand in hers and said, “I know you’re worried about me, but I’m just ___________.”

I thought otherwise. After considerable ___________ on my part, and kindness on her part because she wanted to ___________ me, she agreed to have me refer her to a cancer surgeon. She saw him, but as I expected, ____________ treatment.

About six months later she returned to my office, still energetic and ____________.

“How are you?” I asked.

“I’m just fine, honey,” she responded ____________ high spirits. “When can I get started on fixing my dentures (假牙)?”

Surprised to see her at all, I answered ____________ “Let me take a look in your mouth and we’ll see about it.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. The cancer that had ____________ nearly the entire roof of her mouth was gone—only one small area of redness ____________.

I had read of such things happening, but had ____________ seen them with my own eyes. That was my first miracle. Since then I’ve seen many others, because they keep getting ____________ to see. In fact, miracles are daily events for me now. And people are in miracle, ____________ through them we have a chance to know ourselves and to ____________ the miracles of one another.

Since my first miracle, I’ve come to understand that the time and place for a miracle is ____________ we choose to find it.

3 . Trees play a special role in my life. They accompanied my growth, and my personal experiences and memories often _______with them. There was a row of poplars（杨树）in my first childhood home; I never_____the house without the trees.

Out on the farm, my grandparents always cut a Christmas tree from the fields. They were always short. Those trees were a family ______; I can still ______ their smell all these years later.

The pines in our backyard were only 1.5 meters tall when we moved in. They grew right alongside our kids, and in the same ______: silently and quickly. Those pines once stretched a hammock（吊床）______ the two of them. They watched over our rounds of hide-and-seek, snowfalls, and ______ family gatherings.

A huge willow tree once ______ in the backyard as well. The kids had a tree-house in it for a long time. Other kids in the ______ enjoyed it too.

There is a sadness to a ______ tree; to the ground it makes when it hits the ground.

My husband and I were working as newspaper photographers ______ the active volcano Mount St. Helens exploded. Many nearby forests were _____ destroyed by the effects of the explosion. The loss of all the trees can somehow be as ______ as the loss of lives and homes.

Trees tend to be ______ of strength and beauty.

The trees returned to Mount St. Helens -- and they returned ______ than the experts predicted. To all who had witnessed the disaster, the ______ was encouraging. Those small trees ______ us of the beauty of new beginnings.

We’ve filled in the empty holes ______ the pines stood and dug a new hole that will soon be home to a new tree.

One of the grandchildren asked how tall the new tree is.

“Not much taller than I am,” I said.

“Can we decorate it for Christmas?” she asked, eyes ______.

The old trees may be gone, but the new one will soon become part of my grandchildren’s   ____ for many years to come.