I know this is not like my normal blog posts, but I am sure that you will be blessed by some of these and I pray the Holy Spirit will speak to you as you read through them:
"Security is not the avoidance of bad circumstances, but the
presence of God in the midst of everything." Christina Gibson
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will
happen. Don't be afraid." Frederick
Buechner
“One life on this earth is all that we
get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem
to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and
bravely and beautifully as we can.” Frederick Buechner
“Compassion
is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside
somebody else’s skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be
any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.” Frederick Buechner
"Our life is
full of brokenness - broken relationships, broken promises, broken
expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and
resentful except by returning again and again to God's faithful presence in our
lives." Henri Nouwen
"Turn around
and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared
hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it,
to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the
gladdest thing of all. Amen, and come Lord Jesus." Frederick
Buechner
"Go where
your best prayers take you." Frederick
Buechner
"The real joy
of life is in its play. Play is anything we do for the joy and love of doing
it. It is the real living of life." Walter Rauschenbusch
"Joy is
a mystery because it can happen anywhere, anytime, even under the most unpromising
circumstances, even in the midst of suffering, with tears in its eyes...." Frederick
Buechner
"When
we learn to be inclusive, we can be a world of shalem, or wholeness, and create
a world of shalom, which is peace." Rabbi Ted Riter
"Listen to
your life. See it for the fathomless
mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement
and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it,
because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is
grace." Frederick
Buechner
"To be
commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being
commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of
thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great
commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness - especially in the wilderness
- you shall love him."
"What
we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full
humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything
else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we
truly and fully are . . . because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of
who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the
highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it
more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too
because it makes it easier . . . for other people to tell us a secret or two of
their own . . . " Frederick
Buechner
"Of the
Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to
smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the
prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome
morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways
it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing
down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you." Frederick
Buechner
"The more I
considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule
and order, the chief aim of that order was to give room for good things to run
wild." G.K. Chesterton
"You
are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and
the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you
will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do
much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend
anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted! If that happens
to us, we experience grace." - Paul Tillich
"The grace of
God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you
are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you." Frederick Buechner
"Angels
can fly because they take themselves lightly." Gk Chesterson
“Sometimes
we are too busy living a life to have a life worth living.”
Julia
Cameron
"For last year's words belong to last year's
language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning." TS Elliot
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning." TS Elliot
"I
have come to see the fundamental faith commitment of Christianity as something
like: The most meaningful life is the
life lived in sacrificial love. I'll unpack this more in another
essay, but for now let it suffice to say that Jesus' life and Jesus' teaching
can be summed up in that simple statement. We Christians, then, commit to
a life of sacrificial love because we have faith that this truly is the best
way to live. Sacrificial love is God's way of relating to creation, and
so we trust that it should be our way of relating to it as well. When I
claim to be a Christian, I'm claiming that sacrificial love will be the measure
of my life." Wes Eades
"The essential
presupposition of peacemaking as an activity among Christians is our common
belief that we have been made part of a community in which people no longer
regard their lives as their own. We are not permitted to harbor our grievances
as “ours.” When we think our brother or sister has sinned against us, such an
affront is not just against us but against the whole community. A community
established as peaceful cannot afford to let us relish our sense of being
wronged without exposing that wrong in the hopes of reconciliation. We must
learn to see wrongs as “personal” because we are part of a community where the
“personal” is crucial to the common good.
It is an unpleasant fact, however, that most of our lives are governed more by our hates and dislikes than by our loves. I seldom know what I really want, but I know what or whom I deeply dislike and even hate. It may be painful to be wronged, but at least such wrongs give me a history of resentments that, in fact, constitute who I am. How would I know who I am if I did not have my enemies?" – Haurawas
It is an unpleasant fact, however, that most of our lives are governed more by our hates and dislikes than by our loves. I seldom know what I really want, but I know what or whom I deeply dislike and even hate. It may be painful to be wronged, but at least such wrongs give me a history of resentments that, in fact, constitute who I am. How would I know who I am if I did not have my enemies?" – Haurawas
"The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love." – Coffin
"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." – Anne Lamont
"It is not enough to limit your love to your own nation, to your own race, to your own group. You must respond with love even to those outside of it, respond with love to those who hate you. This concept enables people to live together not as nations, but as the human race." Clarence Jordan
"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something." Henry David Thoreau
"God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by subtracting." Meister Eckhart
"From the cowardice that dare not face
new truth,
From the laziness that is contented
with half truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows
all truth,
Good Lord, deliver us SO THAT WE MIGHT
WALK IN THE GOODNESS OF YOUR LOVE FOREVER AMEN."
