The Stories of Our Lives

Gratitude, Healing, Joy, Life 0

However God may choose to evaluate our lives, whatever memory of our past we shall have in heaven, we know this:  It will only contribute to our joy.  We will read our story by the light of redemption and see how God has used both the good and the bad, the sorrow and the gladness for our welfare and his glory.  With the assurance of total forgiveness we will be free to know ourselves fully, walking again through the seasons of life to linger over the cherished moments and stand in awe at God’s grace for the moments we have tried so hard to forget.  Our gratitude and awe will swell into worship of a Lover so strong and kind as to make us fully his own.

— Brent Curtis & John Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, p. 190-191

Dare to Be Enriched

Joy, Life 0

Being open to the flow of abundance will not eliminate pain from your life.  It won’t instantly make you wealthy.  It won’t even guarantee that people will come to your parties.  What it will do is reinstate you at the center of your own life.  Being open to the flow of abundance will sustain your capacity to greet whatever comes your way, as you dare to be enriched by it.

— Victoria Castle, The Trance of Scarcity, p. 87

Reading

Books, Joy, Reading 0

That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book.  It’s geometrically progressive — all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

— Juliet Ashton in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Brokenness

Joy, Life, Trials, Trust 0

Something bad happens.  I hurt.  I feel unhappy.  I long to feel good.  I ask God for help.  I am resolved to feel better.  I do whatever I can to make at least a few dreams come true.  That is the way of the flesh.

Something bad happens.  I hurt.  I feel unhappy.  I long to feel good.  But I trust God.  His pleasure matters more than mine.  But His pleasure includes mine.  I believe that.  So I abandon myself to His pleasure.  I live to please Him.  I work hard and live responsibly and strive to put balance in my life because that pleases Him.  Making Him feel good is a higher priority than making me feel good.  And somehow, inevitably, at some point, I discover joy.  That is the way of the Spirit.

I shift from walking in the way of the flesh to walking in the way of the Spirit when the pain of life destroys my confidence in my ability to make life work and when it exposes as intolerable, insubordinate arrogance my demand to feel good.  That is the experience of brokenness.  It is then that the chain falls off my leg and the heavy ball rolls away.  It is then that I fly.

— Larry Crabb, Shattered Dreams, p. 153-154

Age with Joy

Joy, Life 0

The responsibilities of a mature life often force us to focus on things that are immediately in front of us, and in that sense, “settling down” can be a good thing.  But such focus doesn’t have to translate into a constricted state of mind.  No one can age well who lets go of their sense of wonder.  You might find yourself thinking things like, Oh, that museum.  Been there, done that.  But if you make the visit anyway, you’ll realize that what you saw at the museum in your younger years was only a fraction of what your eyes can see now….

All of us have seen people who’ve aged with sorrow; we’ve seen others as well who’ve aged with joy.  It’s time to intend to age with joy, deciding that the joy of youth is a good kind of joy, but it’s not the only kind.  In fact, there is a joy in knowing that after all these years, we’ve finally grown up.

— Marianne Williamson, The Age of Miracles:  Embracing the New Midlife, p. 4-5

Good Things Coming

Joy, Letting Go, Life 0

Do not worry about how the good that has been planned for you will come.

It will come.

Do not worry, obsess, think you have to control it, go out hunting for it, or tangle your mind trying to figure out how and when it will find you.

It will find you.

Surrender to your Higher Power each day.  Trust your Higher Power.  Then, stay peaceful.  Trust and listen to yourself.  That is how the good you want will come to you.

Your healing.  Your joy.  Your relationships.  Your solutions.  That job.  That desired change.  That opportunity.  It will come to you — naturally, with ease, and in a host of ways.

That answer will come.  The direction will come.  The money.  The idea.  The energy.  The creativity.  The path will open itself to you.  Trust that, for it has already been planned.

It is futile, a waste and drain of energy, to worry about how it will come.  It is already there.  You have it already.  It is in place.  You just cannot see it!

You will be brought to it, or it will be brought to you.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 368