Quotes about Growth

Every child has to raise itself." Parents can only advise their children or point them in the right direction. Ultimately, people shape their own characters.

Having a baby is like suddenly getting the world's worst roommate.

Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.

A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: I'm not going to take anything away from you, you have to give it to Me.

I pray not to be such a whiny, self-obsessed baby, and give thanks that I am not quite as bad as I used to be (talk about miracles). Then something comes up, and I overreact and blame and sulk, and it feels like I haven't made any progress at all. But it turns out I'm less of a brat than before, and I hit the reset button much sooner, shake it off, and get my sense if humor back.

It really IS easier to experience spiritual connection when your life is in the process of coming apart.

Whenever the world throws rose petals at you, which thrill and seduce the ego, beware.

As far as I can recall, none of the adults in my life ever once remembered to say, "Some people have a thick skin and you don't. Your heart is really open and that is going to cause pain, but that is an appropriate response to this world. The cost is high, but the blessing of being compassionate is beyond your wildest dreams. However, you're not going to feel that a lot in seventh grade. Just hang on.

God can't clean the house of you when you're still in it.

Frequently, as so many poets and psalmists and songwriters have said, the invisible shift happens through the broken places.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace--only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. I can be received gladly or grudgingly, in big gulps or in tiny tastes, like a deer at the salt.

I felt changed and a little crazy. But though I was still like a stained and slightly buckled jigsaw puzzle with some pieces missing, now there were at least a few border pieces in place.