I don’t believe in advice. Everybody has the answers right inside her, since we’re all made up of the same amount of God. So when a friend says, I need some advice, I switch it to, I need some love, and I try to offer that.
I am confident because I believe that I am a child of God. I am humble because I believe that everyone else is too.
But I drink differently than they do. They drink to take the edge off. I drink to disappear.
If I want to know: Is there anyone on earth who won’t betray me? I must answer myself: Yes. Look in the mirror. She won’t betray you. So.
When reentering society and risking rejection, the library is a good place to start. They have low expectations. I love the library. Also church. Both have to take you in.
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. – Howard Thurman.
Faith is not a club to belong to, but a current to surrender to.
Grief is nothing but a painful waiting, a horrible patience. Grief cannot be torn down or scaled or overcome or outsmarted. It can only be outlasted. Survival is surrender to the brick wall. There.
The music is a safe place to practice being human. In the span of one song I can feel it all, let it all come – joy and hope and terror and rage and love – and then let it pass. The song always ends. I survive every time. This is how I know I’m getting better: I become able to survive the beauty of music. I have accepted another one of life’s dangerous invitations: the invitation to feel.
I wonder if the priest knows that while he’s up here charging for forgiveness, Mary’s back there handing it out for free.
Then I remember what my most important parenting job is, and that is to teach my children how to deal with being human. Because most likely, that’s where they’re headed. No matter what I do, they’re headed toward being messed-up humans faster than three brakeless railroad cars. There is really only one way to deal gracefully with being human, and that is this: Forgive yourself.
When they speak to you from their fear – speak past their fear and directly to their love. Their Love will step forward eventually.
On my way out to my car the next morning, I see an index card taped to my front door. It says, “Everything will be okay.” It’s written in my dad’s handwriting. He must have driven over in the middle of the night to leave this message for me. I believe him.
The water is speaking in a language I knew before the world taught me its language. I lie there and I let the sound of the surf massage my soul fo two hours. I let it speak to me and I do not speak back. I just receive. I understand with great gratitude that i could rest here forever, offer the sea nothing in return, and it would never stop speaking to me. The surf is gentle and selfless and steady. This is not a transaction, it is a gift.
The God I decide to believe in is the God of the bathroom floor. A God of scandalously low expectations. A God who smiles down at a drunk on the floor, wasted and afraid, and says, There you are. I’ve been waiting. Are you ready to make something beautiful with me?
I know my name now. Love Warrior. I came from Love and I am Love and I will return to Love. Love casts out fear. A woman who has recovered her true identity as a Love Warrior is the most powerful force on earth. All the darkness and shame and pain in the world can’t defeat her.
Life is brutal, but it’s also beautiful. Life is Brutiful.
I am at peace. And I understand that I am in the middle of a reunion with God. This is a returning of my soul to its source. My soul’s source is God, and God is love. I am, right at this moment, in perfect love with God and there is no fear in perfect love.
Happiness is low expectations paired with a short-term memory problem.
Parenting is hard. Just like lots of important jobs are hard. Why is it that the second a mother admits that it’s hard, people feel the need to suggest that maybe she’s not doing it right? Or that she certainly shouldn’t add more to her load. Maybe the fact that it’s so hard means she IS doing it right, in her own way, and she happens to be honest.