When you fail (which you will), that doesn’t mean that you are a failure. It simply means that you don’t do everything right. We all have to accept the fact that along with strengths we also have weaknesses. Just let Christ be strong in your weaknesses; let Him be your strength on your weak days.
— Joyce Meier, Battlefield of the Mind, p. 36
The process of reinvention, we’ve learned, is best managed with humor, friendship, optimism, and a long-lasting high-beam flashlight to see the light at the end of every tunnel.
— Deborah Collins Stephens, Jackie Speier, Michealene Cristini Risley, and Jan Yanehiro, This Is Not the Life I Ordered, p. 16
If everything looks black, we’ve probably got our eyes shut.
— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 71
Today, I will have flexible eyes. I will plant myself strongly within the decision to look softly. I will move through the day as if it had never occurred before. I will set no judgment in place ahead of time. Over and over, I will return to the fact that I have not had this particular day before. I have never had this phone conversation, been in this crowd, looked at this sky, had this sensation. I will observe how everyone and every circumstance is a little different now than they have ever been. Each difference I see today will be a prize I collect — and by the end of the day, I will be wealthy in newness
— Hugh Prather, The Little Book of Letting Go, p. 213
We must let our day, our week, our life come to us, rather than ceaselessly clawing to get the life we want. Instead of focusing on what hasn’t been done for us, we must look more gently on the particular circumstances we find ourselves in at the moment and concentrate on experiencing stillness and peace where we are.
— Hugh Prather, The Little Book of Letting Go, p. 209
The key thing to know about Martin Luther, I think, is that every event of his life — like every event in yours and mine — was part of the vining growth plan of ups and downs God had devised for him. God frightened him, pushed him, wound him round the Word. As with Noah and Hezekiah and Jonah and others, many of the downturns of Luther’s life happened toward the end, when you’d think he’d be past all that badness, past his humanness, a completely godly man, producing the fullest and most mellow fruit. But it’s God’s plan, not ours, after all, and we are not his equal. As Job points out, “Who can bring what is pure from the impure? No one!” — no one except God, of course, who can do the impossible and did it with me and goes around doing it all the time.
— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 42-43
As soon as we try to control anything, we split our mind and lose our sense of inner comfort. We can change what we bring to the people and circumstances surrounding us, but we can’t dominate them.
Perhaps the only approach that comes remotely close to a rule of life is that when you are relaxed and flexible, you are happy; when you are rigid and controlling, you are unhappy. Therefore, the key is actually to let go of our urge to get people to behave and events to go our way.
No matter how experienced the psychologist, how learned the theologian, how wise the philosopher, or how holy the saint, none of them can control a two-year-old.
— Hugh Prather, The Little Book of Letting Go, p. 204
Charlyne and I want you to “get on with your life.” You do that by loving Jesus more each day, praying more, growing in Him, and trusting God for your every need. We want you to be confident that God will bring about what He has promised.
— Bob Steinkamp, The Prodigal’s Pen, p. 251-252
“You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.”
— Joyce Meyer, Battlefield of the Mind, p. 27
Next time something or someone comes along seeking your time, ask yourself, If I agree and answer yes to this request, what am I saying no to?
— Debbie Macomber, Knit Together, p. 75