Pain

God, Inspiration, Joy, Letting Go, Life, Trials 0

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 Future Is Always Available.

Letting Go, Life, Trials, Trust 0

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

Failure and Integrity

Letting Go, Life, Parenting, Teenagers 0

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

Choose To Be Happy.

Healing, Joy, Letting Go, Relationships 0

When a relationship is over, it stings, and it’s frightening because you don’t know what lies ahead.  The good news is that what happens from there on is up to you.  If you want to be happy, let go of the belief that you are nothing without him and take on the attitude that you are and can be what you choose to be without him.  In fact, let’s just leave him out of the sentence altogether.  Now it reads: You are and can be what you choose to be.  So choose to be independent.  Choose to be strong.  Choose to be happy.

— Dan Baker, PhD, and Cathy Greenberg, PhD, What Happy Women Know, p. 127

Influence

Letting Go, Relationships 0

You cannot change others.  More people suffer from trying to change others than from any other sickness.  And it is impossible.

What you can do is influence others.  But there is a trick.  Since you cannot get them to change, you must change yourself so that their destructive patterns no longer work on you.  Change your way of dealing with them; they may be motivated to change if their old ways no longer work.

Another dynamic that happens when you let go of others is that you begin to get healthy, and they may notice and envy your health.  They may want some of what you have.

One more thing.  You need the wisdom to know what is you and what is not you.  Pray for the wisdom to know the difference between what you have the power to change and what you do not.

— Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend, Boundaries, p. 89

Forward on our Journey

Letting Go, Life 0

Wouldn’t it be easier to skip this whole business?  If we can’t hang on to our desires, wouldn’t it be simpler not to acknowledge them in the first place?

Probably.  But it doesn’t work that way.  There’s something magical and necessary about the process, the way it stands.  The victory, joy, and growth aren’t achieved by avoiding.  The rewards come by overcoming.  Each time we surrender, each time we let go, we’ll be propelled forward on our journey.  We’ll be moved to a deeper level of play.

— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 243-244