My destiny is to remind you to look up from the castles you're building in the sand long enough to notice the cathedrals that God's building all around you - without you, without your sweat, without your tears, without your consent. While you dream your dreams, he's busy building your destiny. And there is as much beauty in your destiny as there was in your dream. Let go and believe that whatever its is, it will be beautiful.
Be confident because you are a child of God. Be humble because everyone else is too.
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.
I am not, at the end of the day, a mother, a wife, a writer, an activist, a friend. I am a child of God. That's who I was when I came into this world and who I'll be when I leave it. No one can take that from me.
The fact that we define ourselves by our roles can be an admirable thing - it's how we build a life and make a living. But it's also precarious. Roles change. Sometimes overnight.
I used to choose friends based on similarity in age and life stage, but I've learned that those were the wrong criteria. Trying to live life exclusively alongside others our own age is like attempting to climb Mt. Everest without a Sherpa. It's a little dangerous.
The amazing thing about love and attention and encouragement and grace and success and joy is that these things are infinite. We get a new supply every single morning, and so we can give it away all day. We never, ever have to monitor the supply of others or grab or hoard.
We need to make friends with ourselves. We are stuck with our self all day, so let's be kinder, gentler, more amusing company. Let's take our own hand and say, 'There, there, sister. You're doing a good job. I'm proud of how you're handling all this craziness down here. Don't give up. Carry on, warrior.'
I think of love and marriage in the same way I do plants: We have perennials and annuals. The perennial plant blooms, goes away, and comes back. The annual blooms for just a season, and then winter arrives and takes it out for good. But it's still enriched the soil for the next flower to bloom. In the same way, no love is wasted.
Life is not safe, and so our task is not to promise our kids there will be no turbulence. It's to assure them that when the turbulence comes, we will all hold hands and get through it together.
Often, we need to ignore the words people say and attend to their underlying, urgent, life or death questions: Am I valuable? Am I loved? The great thing is that the answer is easy: Yes! The answer is always yes. We don't have to think too hard.
Young people: marry simply, start your life, and party later. Think of how much babysitting for your future colicky baby you could buy with that wedding budget. Think of how much marriage therapy you could buy. Invest in your marriage, not your wedding.
Sometimes when you love someone like a mother loves her child, that love can turn into fear. It happens to me all the time. I am so afraid that the world will not be kind to my children.
We can be shiny and perfect and admired, or we can be real and honest and vulnerable and loved. But we actually do have to choose.
Over time, I have come to believe that 'brave' does not mean what we think it does. It does not mean 'being afraid and doing it anyway.' Nope. Brave means listening to the still small voice inside and doing as it says. Regardless of what the rest of the world is saying.
It blows my mind when I actually consider that men are as human as I am. How can you possibly be as human and have all of the thoughts and feelings that I have and never be able to talk about it, ever? Guys are in desperate need of truth telling. They are in desperate need of a revolution.
Book tours are super hard for me as a raging introvert. I love humanity, but actual humans are hard for me. So something like a book tour - where I'm constantly on the road - scares the hell out of me.
Christianity asserts that God made himself human. Those are two different categories - two different levels of worthiness. God is one category, and human is another. That's a downgrade. After that jump, there are no more categories - no more downgrades. There are no human levels of worthiness. There is no hierarchy in God's eyes.
Making sensible family rules around cell phones and driving is a way to love yourself, your marriage, your children, and the world well.
When in doubt, I choose love above any particular ideas offered to me about faith.
