Love is a Decision
I’ve learned that love is a decision, renewable every day. Every minute, sometimes!
— Debbie Macomber, Knit Together, p. 111
Open Your Eyes
If everything looks black, we’ve probably got our eyes shut.
— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 71
Flexible Eyes
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
A Silly Story
Perhaps more couples could be like the couple who recently celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. They summed up the reason for their long and happy marriage this way: The husband said, “I have tried never to be selfish. After all, there is no ‘I’ in the word ‘marriage.'” The wife said, “For my part, I have never corrected my husband’s spelling.”
— Debbie Macomber, Knit Together, p. 109
Work toward Compassion
It’s hard to feel compassion for someone while that person is using or victimizing us. We’ll probably feel angry. First, we stop allowing ourselves to be used. Then, we work toward compassion. Anger can motivate us to set boundaries, but we don’t need to stay resentful to keep taking care of ourselves.
— Melody Beattie, Beyond Codependency, p. 70-71
Contentment
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
A Simple Lesson in Loving
Approach everyone you meet as an individual with dignity and a life as complicated and mysterious as your own. Discard preceonceptions and suspend, even for a moment, the idea that you “know this type.”
Do these things and perhaps you might learn the most important lesson that love can teach us: that each person is worthy of our love simply because they are human, one of God’s unique creations, and begin from there.
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 179
Encouragers
Seek out encouragers and seek to be an encourager yourself.
— Debbie Macomber, Knit Together, p. 108
The Vining Growth Plan
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
Relax
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