Words Worth Repeating

Some people say things, sometimes without even meaning too, that have a clear wisdom or grace to them. I've been collecting quotes for years, and this is my collection (which I will keep adding to). They are by friends, by actors, by writers, by poets...basically anything that touches my heart or makes me think.
(any with no listed author is author anonymous or unknown).
~~~

Those who make religion their god will not have God for their religion.
-Thomas Erskine of Linlathen

"Doing justice is inseparably connected to preaching grace."
Timothy Keller, Generous Justice

You awaken us to delight in Your praise.
You have made us for Yourself,
and our hearts are restless,
until they rest in You.
- St. Augustine

"You are a piece of the puzzle of someone else's life. You may never know where you fit, but others will fill the holes in their lives with pieces of you."
-Bonnie Arbor
(A thought: I talked to a wise woman one day about us as puzzle pieces  She said that we aren't stagnant. We rub up against other people and they change our form. We change theirs. But only because of that does our puzzle piece fit someone else's, to bless and be blessed, to shape and be shaped, in another chapter of our life.  -SK)

A pebble tossed about in the surf, aspiring to be immovable,
casts a glance of longing at the mountaintop
and is pressed into its foundation by the seventy-seventh surf
thinking, I have failed.

Your sisters will sing your song — God’s song for you — when you have long forgotten the words to His Word — to yourself.
When you feel like you are losing your way, that is what your sisters are here for — to sing your Father’s song to you, all of us singing it soft and strong and certain —
We your sisters, will sing your beauty when you see yourself ugly.
We your sisters, will sing you wanted when you see yourself broken.
We your sisters, will sing you hope when you only feel hurt.
We your sisters, will sing you Beloved — when you just can’t believe.
And we will sing who you are until you find your way, the Way
-Ann Voskamp

Because eucharisteo always, always, precedes the miracle of discovering that the Giver Himself is always, always more than enough.
-Ann Voskamp

Eucharisteo:  the giving thanks for every grace that gives back always joy.
-Ann Voskamp

You can’t escape pain — you can only pass pain on, or nail it to a Cross.
-Ann Voskamp

There are some who take communion and anti-depressants and there are those who think both are a crutch.
Come in close — I’d rather walk tall with a crutch than crawl around insisting like a proud and bloody fool that I didn’t need one.
-Ann Voskamp

‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart.’

“Only he who cries… is permitted to sing…"
-Bonhoeffer

You aren’t a citizen of here working your way into heaven. You’re a citizen of heaven working His Way through here.
-Ann Voskamp

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

- Anaïs Nin

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."

- Mother Teresa

Let the grace of the Lord be the measure of your sufficiency;

let the peace of the Lord be the measure of your quietness;

let the power of the Lord be the measure of your strength;

let the goodness of the Lord be the measure of your contentment;

let the love of the Lord be the measure of your service;

let the faithfulness of the Lord be the measure of your trust;

let the beauty of the Lord be the measure of your worship;

let the fullness of the Lord be the measure of your joy;

let the sovereignty of the Lord be the measure of your confidence;

let the promises of the Lord be the measure of your expectations;

let the coming of the Lord be the measure of hope.

You are my portion, O Lord. Psalm 119:57 AMP

- Roy Lessin

Right now, 1 million people are going to hell and most of you don't give a shit...now you are more concerned with me swearing than the 1 million people going to hell..."

- Tony Campolo

“If a cultures vision leads to certain child rearing, educational  and economic practices, then those practices will themselves socialize the children to live in terms of that vision.

-  Middleton/Walsh

You can't be afraid of making mistakes, and even more than that, you can't be afraid of letting people see you make those mistakes.

- a friend

God doesn't give us glorious dreams only to destroy them. He gifts each of us uniquely and He expects us to use what he has blessed us with to enrich life, for ourselves and others.

- Louis Richer

Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for; He died to make them worth it.
- C.S. Lewis

Knowing and loving God is our greatest privilege, and being known and loved is God's greatest pleasure.

- Rick Warren

Identity has to do with not who you are, but whose you are. 

- Dr. Russ Irwin, a prof of mine

The place that God calls us is that place where the world's deep hunger and our deep desire meet. 

- Beuchner

So, God spare us a life of fairness! To live in a world with grace is better by far than to live in a world of absolute fairness. A fair world may make life nice for us, but only as nice as we are. We may get what we deserve, but I wonder how much that is and whether or not we would really be satisfied. A world with grace will give us more than we deserve. It will give us life, even in our suffering. 

- Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised

“Sometimes God gives us a gift; but don't look to the gift to fulfill you, look to the Giver.” 

- A book (can't remember which one)

Lose then your vain and selfish ambitions.

Sow in Hope. Reap in Joy. Both take work.

I believe there is a God because of logical proof; I know there is a God because I have experienced Him.

Sorrow never entirely leaves the soul of those who have suffered a severe loss ... it indicates that people who have anguish are people who feel pain for themselves or for others. Sorrow is noble and gracious. It enlarges the soul until the soul is capable of mourning and rejoicing simultaneously, of feeling the world's pain and hoping for the world's healing at the same time. However painful, sorrow is good for the soul.

- Sittser

Be kind to everyone you meet, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

In the process of effective redemption  desire is not suppressed or destroyed, but gradually transferred, purified  transformed, set on fire; we go through the struggles and activities of human desire to integration and personal wholeness.

- Constance Fitzgerald

God is always trying to give us good things, but our hands are too full to receive them. If our hands are full, they are full of the things to which we are addicted. 

- Augustine

We are called to faithfulness, not success. 

- Gerald May

Freedom actually involves an even greater, purer, deeper ache—a pain that never leaves us.

Love the emptiness of the desert because you know that one day God's rain will fall.

No matter how much grace God has blessed us with, we forever remain dependent upon its continuing flow.

- Gerald May

God is more with us, more intimate, more steady than anything else in our lives.

- Gerald May

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

 - Saint Augustine

Tomorrow I am going to be whatever me I am.

- a friend

Refining means improving the character he has created within you, NOT asking you to be someone you are not. He asks us to die to what we are not and LIVE to what we are.

- a friend

‎Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.

- Barbara Johnson.

The first casualty when war comes is truth. 

- Senator Hiram Johnson

‎A leader is great, not because of his or her power, but because of his or her ability to empower others.

- John Maxwell

‎The excitement of risk is not to be compared to much else in life. To laugh is to risk appearing foolish. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out is to risk rejection. To expose your feelings is to risk revealing your true self. To place your ideas before others is to risk ridicule. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing at all. 

-Tony Campolo

I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.” 

- Charles Dickens (speaking of children)

...in heart is much grief. Much grief trapped in heart becomes much anger. 

- Karate Kid 2 (Yes. Truth can come in movies.)

‎If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. dark would be a word without meaning.
- C.S.Lewis

You are an infinitely fearless woman because you have an infinitely fearless God living inside of you.

- friend of a friend

‎We must be our own before we can be another's. 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

‎A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - On a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - Or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
- C. S. Lewis

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

~ C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Paradigms power perception and perceptions power emotions 

- The Shack

You were singing in the dark, whispering Your promise Even when I could not hear.

"God's greatest act of mercy is the delaying of His second coming."

- a friend

Sometimes I don't know what You are doing, but I know who You are.

- JJ Heller

I'll turn my hands upon they heart,

and purge away thy dross,

I will refine thee in my fire,

Remake thee at my cross.

-Hanna Hurnard

Mission is the work of God that the church simply participates in, not the work of the Church that we ask God to bless. 

- Thin Places

To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.

- William Blake