Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyways.
Holes are good for making friends, and friends are the best fillers I’ve found yet. Maybe because other people are the closest we get to God on this side. So when we use them to find God in each other, we become holy.
Chase’s eyes still glistened while a tiny smile emerged like a hesitant rainbow. This might be his best look. And it is my favorite moment in life. When you realize, “Wow, this is bad. Really, really bad. But we’re still here. We’re gonna make it through. Not over or under or around, but through. And look, we’re even going to smile again.
I remember that there is no right answer. There are only stories to tell. Every day the world will tell my girls its story about sexiness and what it means to be a woman. My girls need to hear my story. Not so my story will become theirs, but so they’ll understand that they are free to write their own stories. They need to know that much of what the world presents to them is not truth, it’s poison. And my girls will only be able to detect lies if they know what truth sounds like.
Addiction is just a little hiding place where sensitive people can go so we don’t have to be touched by love or pain.
That’s the thing about parenting: anxious if you do, anxious if you don’t.
Maybe we need to look at them and say ‘I see your pain. It’s real. I feel it too. We can handle it. We can do hard things. Because we are warriors.
We need to be Atticus. Hands in our pockets. Calm. Believing. So that our children will look at us and even with a fire raging in front of them, they’ll say, “Huh. Guess it’s not time to worry yet.” Then we’ll watch carefully. We’ll just watch and wait and believe until God nods and says, “It’s time. Tear open that gift, Mama.
If, anywhere in your soul, you feel the desire to write, please write. Write as a gift to yourself and others. Everyone has a story to tell. Writing is not about creating tidy paragraphs that sound lovely or choosing the “right” words. It’s just about noticing who you are and noticing life and sharing what you notice. When you write your truth, it is a love offering to the world because it helps us feel braver and less alone. And.
Most of the magic in my life has happened after my heart has been shattered.
Our story is the only thing we have that is completely our own. A person who steals it and uses it to entertain is the worst kind of thief.
I think one of the keys to happiness is accepting that I am never going to be perfectly happy. Life is uncomfortable. So I might as well get busy loving the people around me... I’m going to quit chasing happiness long enough to notice it smiling right at me.
Love is not a victory march; it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah. I.
It strikes me that I need to throw out the dictionary the world gave me about what it means to be a mother, a wife, a person of faith, an artist, and a woman and write my own.
If you can’t beat fear, just do it scared.
But the paradox of pain is that it is only universal in retrospect. In the present, it is fiercely personal.
I think God puts people in our lives as gifts to us. The children in your class this year, they are some of God’s gifts to you. So please treat each one like a gift from God. Every single one.
Having something to say and no one to hear it is so lonely. Expecting less than true friendship in my most important relationship is so depressing.
Life is messy and hard for everybody, and it’s not hard because you’re doing it wrong. It’s just hard because it’s designed that way, because if it weren’t hard, we wouldn’t need each other. And needing each other is the best part of life.
Perhaps pain was not a hot potato after all, but a traveling professor. Maybe instead of slamming the door on pain, I need to throw open the door wide and say, Come in. Sit down with me. And don’t leave until you’ve taught me what I need to know.