One Sure Love

God, Healing, Love, Marriage 0

If all the pain of the world were gathered together, and sorted by cause into great basins, the vast majority of tears would fill an ocean entitled “Unloved.” Because love is the deepest longing of the human heart — however hard we might try to pretend otherwise. When things get painful in our marriage, the arrows that pierce our hearts carry some message of You are not loved. The arrows might be Rejection, or Anger, or Betrayal, or Blaming, or even Silence. But the message is the same: You are no longer loved; you never really have been. We have got to anchor our heart in the one sure Love. You are now, you always have been, and you will forever be loved. It might help to say that to yourself, every day. Maybe every hour. This is the boat that carries your heart right across that ocean of pain to the safe haven of God.

— John and Stasi Eldredge, Love and War, p. 172

The Process of Growth

Growth, Trials 0

When it comes to religion today, we tend to be long on butterflies and short on cocoons. Somehow we’re going to have to relearn that the deep things of God don’t come suddenly. It’s as if we imagine that all of our spiritual growth potential is dehydrated contents to which we need only add some holy water to make it instantly and easily appear.

I received a letter recently from someone who was feeling impatient about taking the long way round. She wrote, “Pole vaulting is so much more alluring than crawling.”

— Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits, p. 26

The Promise of Change

Growth, Healing, Life, Trials 0

The presence of pain is the promise of change. That’s because it hurts to suffer, and when we’re suffering we’re far more inclined to take risks, to take action, to fall on our knees, to break out of bad habits, to break out of the box in order to get beyond the pain that we’re in. Suffering, therefore, is always an invitation to change, to get into alignment with what is most true and beautiful in life, with our deepest and most expansive feelings, with Love itself.

It may not feel this way right now, but just as the oak tree, folded and invisible, lies whole within the acorn, so everything you need to live through this current anguish is within you. You are blessed. Your life is designed. If this crisis weren’t meant to be part of your life, it would not be happening. This is the moment and these are precisely the experiences through which your emotional body is being healed, your soul is being refined and enlarged, and your life itself is taking on a new meaning.

— Daphne Rose Kingma, The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart, p. xviii-xix

Forgiving and Letting Go

Forgiveness, Growth, Healing, Letting Go 0

Just to be clear, forgiving someone doesn’t mean you have to keep that individual in your life. Some people are simply going to have a toxic effect on you if you allow them to stay, and you will have to move away from them. It is how you end those relationships that will affect your spiritual progress. If you can love them, forgive them, and release them in a way that wishes them only healing, you will make excellent progress.

— Kathleen McGowan, The Source of Miracles, p. 137

No One Can Steal Your Destiny.

Forgiveness, God, Guidance, Life 0

No one can steal your destiny.

No matter what anyone “does to you” along your path to either personal or professional happiness, that person cannot interfere with your destiny. Only you are in control of that, within the master plan created with God. You will encounter setbacks in this crazy world of seven billion souls that will frustrate and challenge you. We all do. But your destiny cannot be changed or diminished by another human being’s actions when you are firmly on your path toward carrying out God’s plans.

The old adage “When one door closes, another one opens” is absolutely true. God will always provide new opportunities for you if the actions of another interfere with your divine mission. Such interference is only temporary. How can it be anything else? God is bigger than any human being’s free will, and he will always steer you in another, healthier, and more abundant direction. The divine architect will not have his master plan thwarted because one of the laborers doesn’t want to do his or her part on the building site that day. He will find new laborer for you to partner with so that you can continue to build your monument. And when you know that all such setbacks are temporary, you will find it much easier to forgive humans for being human.

— Kathleen McGowan, The Source of Miracles, p. 134-135

Hearing God’s Voice, Together

God, Guidance, Life, Marriage, Relationships 0

The secret of the Christian life — and the Christian marriage — is that you don’t have to figure it out. You don’t have to figure life out, you don’t have to figure each other out, you don’t have to figure parenting out, or money or family. You have a counselor, you have a guide — you have God. What a relief that we don’t have to figure it all out! We get to walk with God. That is the beauty of Christian spirituality. This is not about mastering principles; it’s about an actual relationship with an actual person who happens to be the wisest, kindest, and, okay, wildest person you will ever know.

— John and Stasi Eldredge, Love and War, p. 130-131

Reluctance to Forgive

Forgiveness, Growth, Joy 0

The inability, or reluctance, to forgive is our greatest failing. It is the cause of the majority of personal strife as well as global war. When you hold on to your anger, resentment, or disappointment in other people, you sabotage your own happiness. You use your precious spiritual energy on those negative emotions, when you could be using that power to live a joyous life, attract abundance, and improve the conditions of the world around you. An inability or unwillingness to forgive constricts you, draws you inward, whereas forgiveness gives you the opportunity to expand and open the channels of abundance in your life.

— Kathleen McGowan, The Source of Miracles, p. 125-126