There isn’t anything that happens that can’t teach us something, that can’t be turned into something positive. One can’t undo what’s been done, but one can use it creatively…. The only thing is to accept, and let the scar heal. Scar tissue is the strongest tissue in the body…. So, I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s the strongest part of the soul.
— Madeleine L’Engle, A House Like a Lotus, quoted by Carole F. Chase in Glimpses of Grace, p. 271
I’ve started to realize that waiting is an art, that waiting achieves things. Waiting can be very, very powerful. Time is a valuable thing. If you can wait two years, you can sometimes achieve something that you could not achieve today, however hard you worked, however much money you throw up in the air, however many times you banged your head against the wall.
— The Courage to Change by Dennis Wholey
. . .
We don’t have to put our life on hold while we wait. We can direct our attention elsewhere; we can practice acceptance and gratitude in the interim; we can trust that we do have a life to live while we are waiting — then we go about living it.
— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 293
When life kicks us in the stomach, we want someone to be with us as we are, not as he or she wishes us to be. We don’t want someone trying to make us feel better. That effort, no matter how well intended, creates a pressure that adds to our distress.
Why is it so difficult to simply give ourselves to each other when things are hard without yielding to the urge to give relief, to help, to try to make things better?
— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 123-124
God has graciously allowed some of my fears to come true so I would discover I would not disintegrate.
— Beth Moore, Praying God’s Word Day by Day, p. 285
Satan’s desire is to keep us away from communion with God. He doesn’t care how he does it.
God’s intention, on the other hand, is to use spiritual warfare to draw us into deeper communion with himself. Satan’s device is to isolate us and wear us out obsessing about what he has done and what he will do next. And he is very effective in using our particular Message of the Arrows to do it. God desires to use the enemy’s attacks to remove the obstacles between ourselves and him, to reestablish our dependency on him as his sons and daughters in a much deeper way. Once we understand that, the warfare we are in begins to feel totally different. It is not really even about Satan anymore, but about communion with God and abiding in Jesus as the source of life. The whole experience begins to feel more like a devotional.
Through my own experience, I begin to see more clearly that God is so confident in the good that he is willing to allow our adversary latitude in carrying out his evil intentions for the purpose of deepening our communion with himself.
— Brent Curtis & John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, p. 120
There is a certain innocence about beginning, with its excitement and promise of something new. But this will emerge only through undertaking some voyage into the unknown. And no one can foretell what the unknown might yield. There are journeys we have begun that have brought us great inner riches and refinement; but we had to travel through dark valleys of difficulty and suffering. Had we known at the beginning what the journey would demand of us, we might never have set out. Yet the rewards and gifts became vital to who we are. Through the innocence of beginning we are often seduced into growth.
John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 2-3
Let’s make the decision to joyfully accept all situations — the lines, the traffic jams, the downed computers, and the rest — as opportunities to include God in our lives, in that moment, and then wait for the change in perception that will assuredly come.
— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 14-15
Happy women know that happiness is not the art of building a trouble-free life but rather the art of responding well when trouble strikes.
— Dan Baker, PhD, and Cathy Greenberg, PhD, What Happy Women Know, p. 236
I would count on this: God is always working to make His children aware of a dream that remains alive beneath the rubble of every shattered dream, a new dream that when realized will release a new song, sung with tears, till God wipes them away and we sing with nothing but joy in our hearts.
— Dr. Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 82
But consider this: What if you knew it would all turn out well, whatever you are facing? What if Romans 8:28 really were more than a cliche? What if it was a certainty, a Spirit-certified life preserver, an unsinkable objective truth, infinitely buoyant, able to keep your head above water even when your ship is going down?
What if it really worked? What if it always worked? What if there were no problems beyond its reach?
— Robert J. Morgan, The Promise: How God Works All Things Together For Good, p. 3