Growth Is Worth It.

Growth, Joy, Life, Trials 0

Childbirth is difficult, but holding the child makes the pain worthwhile. And so it is when we finally have a glimpse of our own completion as human beings — regardless of our husband or lack of one, our boyfriend or lack of one, our job or lack of one, our money or lack of it, our children or lack of any, or whatever else we think we need in order to thrive and be happy. When we have finally touched on a spiritual high that is real and enduring, then we know that the pain of getting there was worth it, and the years ahead will never be as lonely.

— Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth, p. 138-139

The Elder Brother’s Spirit

God, Life, Obedience, Trials 0

We see that the elder brother “became angry.” All of his words are dripping with resentment. The first sign you have an elder-brother spirit is that when your life doesn’t go as you want, you aren’t just sorrowful but deeply angry and bitter. Elder brothers believe that if they live a good life they should get a good life, that God owes them a smooth road if they try very hard to live up to standards.

What happens, then, if you are an elder brother and things go wrong in your life? If you feel you have been living up to your moral standards, you will be furious with God. You don’t deserve this, you will think, after how hard you’ve worked to be a decent person! What happens, however, if things have gone wrong in your life when you know that you have been falling short of your standards? Then you will be furious with yourself, filled with self-loathing and inner pain….

Elder brothers’ inability to handle suffering arises from the fact that their moral observance is results-oriented. The good life is lived not for delight in good deeds themselves, but as calculated ways to control their environment.

— Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God, p. 49-50

God Is Our Witness.

Compassion, God, Healing, Trials 0

Many times what we are seeking from God is a sense of witness. We want to know that someone, somewhere, is paying attention to us and to our struggles. We do not even necessarily want God to intervene for us. But we do want to know that God is paying attention. We do want to know that God understands. This is the juncture where we often get derailed. Many very spiritual people can have a tinge of righteousness. They may see our struggles, but they do not understand them and they give us the uncomfortable feeling that God does not either. Ah, but God understands.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 68

God Can Handle It.

God, Prayer, Trials 0

One bold message from the book of Job is that you can say anything to God. Throw at God your grief, your anger, your doubt, your bitterness, your betrayal, your disappointment — God can absorb them all. As often as not, spiritual giants of the Bible are shown contending with God. They prefer to go away limping, like Jacob, rather than to shut God out. In this respect, the Bible prefigures a tenet of modern psychology: you can’t really deny your feelings or make them disappear, so you might as well express them. God can deal with every human response save one. God cannot abide the response I fall back on instinctively: an attempt to ignore God or act as though God does not exist. That response never once occurred to Job.

— Philip Yancey, Grace Notes, p. 348

Tests of Faith

Faith, God, Trials 0

Often when we face a test of faith, it is because God’s will may run counter to our wishes. We want what we want, and we are unable to take the longer view that God’s will entails — for that matter, we may be unable to see the longer view. This is when we are being asked to demonstrate blind faith, that is, a faith in a larger benevolence, even though we ourselves are unable to see the higher wisdom at hand.

“God, I believe; help my disbelief” is the prayer for times of blind faith. We are asking for the grace to go along with the joke, and the joke may seem to us to have a very harsh punchline. We are asking, often, to accept an untimely death or the shattering of a cherished dream. We are asking for the courage to believe, in the face of our own human disappointment, that a silver lining might just exist and that if we stay faithful we might eventually come to see it. So much of what happens to us seems in cozy retrospect to have been designed for our best good. So little of what happens to us feels that way at the time.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 59

Sharing the Burden

Faith, God, Trials 0

Faith makes the unbearable bearable. It renders the burden that is too heavy to be borne alone a burden that is shared. It brings the help of God to our side, and once it is there, that help becomes the walking stick by which we move forward.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 57

Strength

Growth, Trials 0

Strength does not come after one climbs the ladder or the mountain, nor after one “makes it” — whatever that “it” represents. Strengthening oneself is essential to the process of striving — especially before and during — as well as after. It is my belief that attention to and devotion to the nature of soul represents the quintessential strength.

— Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves, p. 516

Surrender

Faith, Letting Go, Prayer, Trials 0

In order to find a silver lining, we must be willing to look for one. At the very least, we must be willing to recognize one when it appears. We must be willing to be comforted in order to be comforted. We must maintain an openness to spiritual realities. We must be teachable in order that we may be taught. It is for this reason that the great prayer is “Thy will be done.” The surrendering of our independent spirits to a higher good makes it possible to find a path through darkness. “Thy will be done, O Lord. Thy will be done.” This is the prayer of the dark night of the soul. This is the prayer of surrender.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 43