Why Should Kids Have All the Fun?
It is never too late to have your life changed by a children’s book.
— Jerry J. Mallett, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book, edited by Anita Silvey, p. 211
Reading Great Books With Our Children
When we read great books with our children, we teach them to turn to great books throughout their lives for comfort, humor, and for illumination of the human experience. The most influential leaders and thinkers in the world have consistently relied on literature for inspiration at their most difficult moments. Nelson Mandela turned to Steinbeck during his imprisonment and says it changed his life. Lincoln was criticized for reading novels in the middle of the Civil War; he defended himself by saying that it kept him sane.
Whether we are called upon to govern a nation or organize a birthday party for too many children, the key to both surviving our days and cultivating our next generation of leaders is many books, well chosen.
— Kyle Zimmer, Everything I Learned to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book, edited by Anita Silvey, p. 207
God’s Unrelenting Forgiveness
God won’t be put off. Not one jot or tittle. He will forgive you anything, but he will pass nothing.
— George MacDonald, Wisdom to Live By, p. 87
Authentic Emotions
Because we are authentic followers of Jesus, we will become really good at celebrating, enjoying good friends, and living with joyful hearts.
— Matthew Elliott, Feel, p. 153
Being Happy
When you can recognize the feeling of happiness when it’s there, you will realize that this feeling is what you have been looking for all along. The feeling isn’t leading somewhere else — it’s the goal, not the means to a goal. If the bride-to-be understands that her happiness comes first from within, she can make the decision to marry or not to marry from a place of wisdom, not from a place of lack. If she is already happy, the marriage will also be happy. If the couple then decides to have children, the children will grow up in a happy environment without the pressure of being someone’s source of happiness. The same will be true throughout the life of any happy person. Happiness breeds a happy existence and a joyous way of looking at life….
Happiness is right now. Your life is not a dress rehearsal for some later date — it is right here, right now. The invisible quality of happiness we have all been looking for is right here in a feeling.
— Richard Carlson, PhD, You Can Be Happy No Matter What, p. 127, 129
Practice
We can have all the knowledge in the universe, and it comes down to one thing: practice. It comes down to going home and step-by-step implementing what we know. As often as necessary, and for as long as possible, or forever, whichever comes first. It is very reassuring to know that when one is in a burgeoning rage one knows precisely and with the skill of a craftswoman what to do about it: wait it out, release illusions, take it for a climb on the mountain, speak with it, respect it as a teacher.
— Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, Women Who Run With the Wolves, p. 388
Glad to Hear from Us
If God is with us every moment, then we can ask for direction at all times. There will never be a moment in which our prayer is unheard, although we may hurry onward, not taking time for an answer. To know God takes a beat. We must reach out and allow the time to feel that what we have reached out to has reached out back to us. Most of us are too hurried to know God. And yet we act as if God is too hurried to know us….
If God is always there and always available, then we are the ones who lag behind. Perhaps we do what I do and tag base with God only in the morning, forgetting about God the rest of the day, just going from thing to thing without taking God into account. Is it possible that in light of this, God gets lonely? Is it possible that God misses us? I think it is possible. I think that God is always glad to hear from us.
— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 8
Making Peace
After forty-eight hours of writing about my problems, praying about my problems, and meditating about my problems, I remembered something a friend had said to me.
“What are you doing?” he had asked.
“I’m trying to surrender to God’s will.”
“No you’re not; you’re trying to figure it out.”
Within six months, each of the problems I was wrestling with worked themselves out. I was either guided into an action that naturally felt right at the time, or a solution came to me. The immediate solution to each problem was the same: let go. Just surrender to the situation taking place.
Sometimes, what we need to do next is surrender.
If you don’t like the word surrender, try calling it making peace.
— Melody Beattie, More Language of Letting Go, p. 194-195
What Matters
It is a very small matter to you whether another man does you right; it is life or death to you whether you do him right.
— George MacDonald, Wisdom to Live By, p. 87
Emotional Maturity
God wants us to be emotionally mature with emotionally full lives. Becoming emotionally mature is not, as many teach, about becoming emotionally controlled. It is about becoming emotionally adept, emotionally wise, and emotionally skilled. It is about having lives that are chockful of wonder and feeling — and then having the ability and practiced skill to live well and wisely in a richly emotional world.
— Matthew Elliott, Feel, p. 151