trying hard

      When you’re trying hard to be liked and admired and accepted, you can’t relax and enjoy the people around you. When you remember that you’re already loved, you can. 

“[T]o be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously.” Donald Miller

“He crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion. . . .” Psalm 103:4

 

adventure

      When the road to free-and-healed gets steep and scary, it helps to imagine what it will be like when you get there.

“If you ask God to free you or heal you, you commit to quite an adventure.” Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich

“[T]o heal the brokenhearted and free the captives. . . .” Isaiah 61:1

the skeleton at the feast

      When you choose to stay angry, important parts of you (like compassion and joy and lightness of heart) start to disappear.

“To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances . . . , to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back — in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.” Frederick Buechner

"Forgive, release and set free, and you will be forgiven, released and set free." Luke 6:37

deep happiness

      Maybe it takes a lifetime to grow into deep happiness because it’s so hard to let yourself be deeply loved.

“We are meant to live in the deep happiness of ‘nothing can separate us from the love of God.’” Br. David Vryhof

“I am confident that neither . . . things present nor things to come . . . nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate [me] from the love of God. . . .” Romans 8:38-39

making melody

      Here’s a good question to ask yourself the next time you’re worried and tied-in-knots about something: is it really that important?

“If the moments of your day-to-day life were recorded as musical notes, what kind of music would they make?” Eugene Peterson 

“[M]aking melody with your heart. . . .” Ephesians 5:19

strength of soul

      Today could be a good day or a bad day. It’s more a matter of perspective than circumstances.

“Every trouble is an opportunity to win the grace of strength. . . . Fortunately, every day is crowded with care. . . . Every day we are blessed with new opportunities for the development of strength of soul.” George Hodges

“Be strong . . . for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9