Waiting as Prayer

Life, Prayer 0

Waiting is part of ordinary time.  We discover God in our waiting:  waiting in checkout lines, waiting for the telephone to ring, waiting for graduation, waiting for a promotion, waiting to retire, waiting to die.  The waiting itself becomes prayer as we give our waiting to God.  In waiting we begin to get in touch with the rhythms of life — stillness and action, listening and decision.  They are the rhythms of God.  It is in the everyday and the commonplace that we learn patience, acceptance, and contentment.

— Richard J. Foster, Prayer, p. 174

Our Vocation as Prayer

Life, Prayer 0

Our vocation is an asset to prayer because our work becomes prayer.  It is prayer in action.  The artist, the novelist, the surgeon, the plumber, the secretary, the lawyer, the homemaker, the farmer, the teacher — all are praying by offering their work up to God….

We do not need to have good feelings or a warm glow in order to do work for the glory of God.  All good work is pleasing to the Father.  Even the jobs that seem meaningless and mindless to us are highly valued in the order of the kingdom of God.  God values the ordinary.  If, for the glory of God, you are putting an endless supply of nuts on an endless line of bolts, your work is rising up as a sweet-smelling offering to the throne of God.  He is pleased with your labor.

— Richard J. Foster, Prayer, p. 171-173

The Secular and the Sacred

Life, Prayer 0

In the creation and the incarnation the great God of the universe intertwined the spiritual and the material, wedded the sacred and the secular, sanctified the common and the ordinary.  How astonishing!  How wonderful!

The discovery of God lies in the daily and the ordinary, not in the spectacular and the heroic.  If we cannot find God in the routines of home and shop, then we will not find him at all.  Ours is to be a symphonic piety in which all the activities of work and play and family and worship and sex and sleep are the holy habitats of the eternal.

— Richard J. Foster, Prayer, p. 171

Good Enough

Healing, Letting Go, Life, Peace 0

I made a decision that day.  I was here, I was me, and I was enough in spite of my past, my present, my future, my weaknesses, my foibles, my mistakes, and my humanness.

We’re good, and we’re good enough.  Sometimes we make big mistakes; sometimes we make little mistakes.  But the mistake is what we do, not who we are.  We have a right to be, to be here, and be who we are.  If we’re not certain who we are, we have a right to make that exciting discovery.  And we don’t ever have to let shame tell us any differently.

–Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 111

Nobler than Suffering

Healing, Inspiration, Life 0

Integrity and honesty are noble.  Suffering is not required.  In fact, when you suffer, it’s easy to forget about the rest of the world.  Personal suffering tends to obscure our vision beyond our own pain and to cut us off from community….

When people rewrite and heal their limiting belief about suffering, they begin to look outward, not inward.  There would be more focus in the world on helping others and being of service rather than on one’s own wounds or suffering.  People’s attention would not be on keeping a good reputation (as one who suffers and is therefore noble), but connecting with the person next door who could use some assistance.

— Christel Nani, Sacred Choices, p. 208

Up to You

Healing, Life 0

Just like the level of resentment you carry, the amount of suffering you endure is entirely up to you.  Change your limiting beliefs about suffering and the subtle ways you cause yourself to suffer, and I guarantee at least 50 percent of your suffering will disappear.  (And how many martyrs does it take to change that lightbulb?  Absolutely none, because they all just sit in the dark — by their own choice — and quietly suffer.)

— Christel Nani, Sacred Choices, p. 207

Victor or Victim

Life, Love 0

Loss of love is always devastating, but it can also be a time for airing out stuffy inner rooms, reassessing values, starting anew.  Relationships may become stagnant or wither and die, but life and love continue.

— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 204

To-don’t Lists

Joy, Letting Go, Life 0

We need to rid our to-do lists of things that don’t matter, don’t create value, don’t make a difference.  We need to restructure our lives and take more time to do things that bring us joy.  Women need to carve out time for the activities that will create meaningful lives and discard the things that won’t.

— This Is Not the Life I Ordered, by Deborah Collins Stephens, Jackie Speier, Michealene Cristini Risley, and Jan Yanehiro

True Fulfillment

God, Joy, Life 0

How gracious God is; how gentle with His earth-bound children!  Despite my reluctance to follow, little by little He led me deeper into His truth.  How could I know that in committing myself to God’s sovereignty I was embracing the richest love, the purest joys, the truest source of fulfillment the human heart can know?

— Margaret Clarkson, So You’re Single, p. 35