When he told us not to cast our pearls before swine, for example, it was not to be mean but because he knew that swine cannot digest pearls; they do them no good (Matt. 7:6). We, too, should have the good sense to refrain from giving people truth that they are not ready to receive, for it will do them no good.
— Richard J. Foster, Prayer, p. 232
Our spouses, our friends, our family, our neighbors, even the strangers crossing our paths, must be who they are, not who we think they should be. They must make their own mistakes and, through what they learn, have reason to celebrate their own successes.
There are many reasons for letting go of this futile behavior, but the most important ones are that we will never succeed in controlling others and never experience peace in our own lives if we are always focused on how other people are living or how we think they should be living. If we want to be peaceful, we must let go of how others choose to live and take care of business in one life only: our own.
— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 9-10
Go on the presumption that your partner has a bigger picture. You may not see it now, and it may not be logical, but it will make emotional sense if you can allow yourself to hear her story. You have a better chance of learning that story if you can continue asking questions like, “In addition to anger, what else do you feel? . . . And what else?”
Don’t get stuck on getting your point heard. In Seething Stalemate, you tend to put the bulk of your energy into coercing your partner to hear your side. Once you give that up, you’re likely to obtain clearer focus of what the argument is really about.
— Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter T. Pearson, PhD, Tell Me No Lies, p. 141
Nothing clarifies boundaries more than forgiveness. To forgive someone means to let him off the hook, or to cancel a debt he owes you. When you refuse to forgive someone, you still want something from that person, and even if it is revenge that you want, it keeps you tied to him forever.
— Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries, p. 134
It bears repeating: We are not in charge of others! Not their behavior, their thoughts, their dreams, their problems, their successes, or their failures.
Even the children we parent have their own journey to make, and our so-called control over them is, in fact, an illusion. We can set an example for them, we can suggest a set of behaviors, we can demonstrate a code of ethics, we can even require that they live by certain “house rules” while under our roof, but finally it is they who will decide who they want to be and what they want to do, regardless of our efforts. And for that we will become grateful in time.
I say: Let’s celebrate the fact that we are in charge of no one but ourselves. It relieves us of a heavy burden, and a thankless job, one that never blesses us. Taking control of every thought we have and every action we take, and being willing to relinquish the past while savoring the present, will assuredly keep us as busy as we need to be. Doing these things, and only these things is why we are here. It’s only when we live our own lives and manage our own affairs, freeing others to do the same, that we find the peace we seek and so deserve.
— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow: 12 Simple Principles, p. 8-9
A good relationship is worth the effort of letting go of an annoying trait in your partner and being as kind as possible to this person you are connected to. Those two ideas are central to your marriage vows. A marriage is a choice to recommit to your partner every day. Every spouse, whether recovering from a brutal betrayal or simply dealing with a sloppy partner, decides every day wehter to get up and dance with that partner again. Every marriage goes through periods when each partner is not sure about continuing it. . . . Forgiveness is based upon a continual recommitment to your relationship. Forgiveness comes after grieving your losses, and it allows you to move forward in your relationship with happiness and a positive attitude. This is true whether the losses were big (your spouse is a drug addict) or little (your lazy partner never does the grocery run) or somewhere in between — as when you accept the fact that you married a slob, you have grieved the neat person you should have married, and you have recommitted to the lovable human being you chose to be with.
Recommitting is an ongoing process; you have to recommit every time your lover says the same dumb thing again and you react with your same exasperated sigh. You have to recommit when your lover is late yet again, or leaves a cheap tip for the third time in a week. If your partner does something annoying but ultimately insignificant, acknowledge your dismay or loss for an instant and then connect right back again. Try saying something to help put the annoyance in perspective and get back in the game. You could remind yourself that “she’s worth it,” or “it was no big deal.” Most of the time you don’t even need to let your lover know he or she has done anything wrong.
— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 199-200
And so God must, from time to time, and sometimes very insistently, disrupt our lives so that we release our grasping of life here and now. Usually through pain. God is asking us to let go of the things we love and have given our hearts to, so that we can give our hearts even more fully to him. He thwarts us in our attempts to make life work so that our efforts fail, and we must face the fact that we don’t really look to God for life. Our first reaction is usually to get angry with him, which only serves to make the point. Don’t you hear people say, “Why did God let this happen?” far more than you hear them say, “Why aren’t I more fully given over to God?”
We see God as a means to an end rather than the end itself. God as the assistant to our life versus God as our life. We don’t see the process of our life as coming to the place where we are fully his and he is our all. And so we are surprised by the course of events.
It’s not that God doesn’t want us to be happy. He does. It’s just that he knows that until we are holy, we cannot really be happy. . . .
We are so committed to arranging for a happy little life that God has to thwart us to bring us back to himself. . . .
Now, I am not suggesting that God causes all the pain in our lives. . . . But pain does come, and what will we do with it? What does it reveal? What might God be up to? How might he redeem our pain? those are questions worth asking.
Don’t waste your pain.
— John Eldredge, Walking with God, p. 87-88
The past is irreparable; the future is always available. In every case, when good dreams shatter, better ones are there to newly value and pursue. . . .
No matter what happens in life, a wonderful dream is available, always, that if pursued will generate an unfamiliar, radically new internal experience. That experience, strange at first, will eventually be recognized as joy.
— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 53-54
When teenagers let themselves fall short by failing to hold onto their integrity, they simultaneously have a tremendous opportunity to reaffirm themselves and their integrity. That is, without failures, they do not learn how valuable their integrity is to their well-being. And this is the ultimate paradox of successfully raising teenagers: They need to experience a bunch of failures along the way to adulthood. And how we handle their failures and how we teach them to address these missteps is crucial.
— Michael Riera, PhD, Staying Connected to Your Teenager, p. 155
Give up the notion that an argument can be won. People desperately want to win because prevailing and “winning” seem the only way out. When you try to win each battle, nobody ever wins.
— Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter T. Pearson, PhD, Tell Me No Lies, p. 140