One Sure Love

God, Healing, Love, Marriage 0

If all the pain of the world were gathered together, and sorted by cause into great basins, the vast majority of tears would fill an ocean entitled “Unloved.” Because love is the deepest longing of the human heart — however hard we might try to pretend otherwise. When things get painful in our marriage, the arrows that pierce our hearts carry some message of You are not loved. The arrows might be Rejection, or Anger, or Betrayal, or Blaming, or even Silence. But the message is the same: You are no longer loved; you never really have been. We have got to anchor our heart in the one sure Love. You are now, you always have been, and you will forever be loved. It might help to say that to yourself, every day. Maybe every hour. This is the boat that carries your heart right across that ocean of pain to the safe haven of God.

— John and Stasi Eldredge, Love and War, p. 172

No One Can Steal Your Destiny.

Forgiveness, God, Guidance, Life 0

No one can steal your destiny.

No matter what anyone “does to you” along your path to either personal or professional happiness, that person cannot interfere with your destiny. Only you are in control of that, within the master plan created with God. You will encounter setbacks in this crazy world of seven billion souls that will frustrate and challenge you. We all do. But your destiny cannot be changed or diminished by another human being’s actions when you are firmly on your path toward carrying out God’s plans.

The old adage “When one door closes, another one opens” is absolutely true. God will always provide new opportunities for you if the actions of another interfere with your divine mission. Such interference is only temporary. How can it be anything else? God is bigger than any human being’s free will, and he will always steer you in another, healthier, and more abundant direction. The divine architect will not have his master plan thwarted because one of the laborers doesn’t want to do his or her part on the building site that day. He will find new laborer for you to partner with so that you can continue to build your monument. And when you know that all such setbacks are temporary, you will find it much easier to forgive humans for being human.

— Kathleen McGowan, The Source of Miracles, p. 134-135

Hearing God’s Voice, Together

God, Guidance, Life, Marriage, Relationships 0

The secret of the Christian life — and the Christian marriage — is that you don’t have to figure it out. You don’t have to figure life out, you don’t have to figure each other out, you don’t have to figure parenting out, or money or family. You have a counselor, you have a guide — you have God. What a relief that we don’t have to figure it all out! We get to walk with God. That is the beauty of Christian spirituality. This is not about mastering principles; it’s about an actual relationship with an actual person who happens to be the wisest, kindest, and, okay, wildest person you will ever know.

— John and Stasi Eldredge, Love and War, p. 130-131

The True Me

Core Value, God, Growth, Life 0

What is inside me, the thing I love with, and the thing I think about God with, and the thing I love poetry with, the thing I read the Bible with — that thing God keeps on making bigger and bigger. That thing is me, and God will keep on making it bigger to all eternity, though he has not even got me into the right shape yet.

— George MacDonald, Wisdom to Live By, p. 30

God’s Best

God, Growth, Love, Trials 0

If we believe that God does his best for every man and woman, we must also believe that God knows every person’s needs, and will, for love’s sake, not spare one pang that may serve to purify the soul of one of his children.

— George MacDonald, Wisdom to Live By, p. 21