As I’m researching and reading and writing my next book, I’ve stopped many times. When thinking a new thought, when recalling an old story, or when reading another writer’s words, I pause. To think. To reflect. To see what the words are saying to me.
I’m including here a few quotes from others authors.
Read them. Pause. Think. See what their words are saying to you.
In my finite life, the mundane has begun to sparkle. The things I love—the things I should love—become clearer, brighter.
—Kate Bowler, No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear
The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.
—Frederick Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry
People are fragmented. They are torn. Life doesn’t work for them because they are without Jesus. They don’t need more programs and more activities. They simply need a place to be healed. The place does not have to be fancy. The physical environment need not be impressive. The people don’t have to be super-spiritual. They simply need to be real, loving, accepting, forgiving.
—Jerry Cook, Love, Acceptance, and Forgiveness
The love between parents and children depends heavily on forgiveness. It is our imperfections that mark us as human and our willingness to tolerate them in our families and ourselves redeems the suffering to which all love makes us vulnerable. In happy moments such as this we celebrate the miracle of two people who found each other and created new lives together. If love can indeed overcome death, it is only through the exercise of memory and devotion.
—Gordon Livingston, M.D., Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart
Christianity has a principle, “Hate the sin but love the sinner,” which is more easily preached than practiced. If Christians could simply recover that practice, modeled so exquisitely by Jesus, we would go a long way toward fulfilling our calling as dispensers of God’s grace.
—Philip Yancey, The Scandal of Forgiveness: Grace Put to the Test
The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.
—Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Yancey’s observation of how believers respond to sinners is telling — telling the world the truth about God’s love or misleading the world by distorting Jesus’ central message of grace. Perhaps that’s the reason our American churches are often weak and ineffective. God help us to be ready dispensers of His grace.
I have had a lot of moments with my parents that forced me to forgive them when all I did was resent them. But by forgiving them I was also forgiving myself and setting myself free of the problem. I know they are trying their best and they are still learning themselves. I’ve grown up with them in a sense and people will always make mistakes. That is how we learn and become better by making mistakes and learning from them.
Whenever there is a conflict between me and another person I tell myself to put myself in their shoes. Obviously, from a personal standpoint, it can seem that they are being unreasonable and crazy, but you have to think about how you would react in their shoes. It puts the situation into perspective that we wouldn’t have gotten if we didn’t take the time to think about what we would have done. We always tend to believe that we are in the right no matter what, but doing this will help both resolve the conflict.
I have moments where I believe that I am more torn and broken than others, but then I realize that God gives us these moments to make us stronger. He gives us these feelings so that we can figure out how to heal ourselves through both him and our surroundings and grow stronger in him. We need to take these broken moments and use them to grow in our faith and our relationships with those around us.
I liked what Jerry Cook mentioned in his quote pertaining to: love, acceptance, and forgiveness. As humans, we tend to go through hardships that cause us to be broken. Being born again through Jesus illuminates us as new individuals providing us with opportunities to do right by him. Before I surrendered my life to Jesus, I found myself trying to fill a void that never seemed to be satisfied. He mentions that life without Jesus doesn’t work just because of that in itself. I found myself in the same position, as I’m sure we can all say the same.
That place of healing is beneficial to our own sanity. Looking in the mirror and facing your problems head on is the only way to be healed. That place can sometimes be messy and hectic, but that comes with the healing process.
There are often times where life feels like it is moving at 100mph. I often miss important things because of how busy I feel. By pausing and taking time to strengthen my faith and realise what I am doing, it often helps me complete tasks better. I believe this is because Jesus is walking with me.
I liked the end of the quote from Frederick Buechner when he said, “The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.” To be a Christian is to strive for Heaven, in doing this, it seems as though the deep yearning that we hold to be with God and experience Heaven in placed upon us. Simply because we are homesick for Heaven. This may be why most spend time trying to earn a place there when in reality it is already our forever place of dwelling. Like the prodigal son being embraced by his father, we too will be welcomed back to our home when our earthly lives are through.
The quote from Jerry Cook is really resonating with me right now in this moment, we can’t truly be whole without feeling the compassion and love from Jesus. It is like we are living life blind without the Lord’s guidance. We don’t need to add more tasks to our schedule to make ourselves feel good, we need the warm embrace of a loving being and that starts with believing.
The quote from Philip Yancey was very nice it reminds me of actors who play villians in a movie and doe a great job, like the guy who plays Thanos in the Avengers movies. The actor Josh Brolin will forever be a villian to me in whatever movie I see him in because of how well he played his role for Thanos and that is what many of us do with people who commit certain sins. We label them as that sin and act as if they can never overcome it when the Lord sees us all the same way and there is no ranking of sins to him like how many of us see them. Like he said we would all go a long way if we could remember this a little more often.