Quotes about Reflection

Noise and crowds have a way of siphoning our energy and distracting our attention, making prayer an added chore rather than a comforting relief

Wrap your heart around that the next time you go through a struggle," Clara said. "The goal of prayer is not to change God's mind

And God has this funny way of stretching and changing and pushing us toward things we don't want to face. I don't think the past is something we deal with as much as it deals with us.

The past is like grace. It's not enough to know about it. We all know what happened back there. Grace allows you to see yourself in light of the past, not in the shadow of it. You see the truth about yourself, your need.

You can live under the weight of your past or the weight of forgiveness. If you choose the former, you'll constantly be working off the guilt like someone who overeats at the holidays.

But there are some things you can't do even if you desire them. There are some choices you can't take back. Words said that can't be unsaid

You once said a man's life is a series of choices. Small decisions made every day that don't seem to matter. That nobody notices but you, if you even notice. Over time, those decisions are like raindrops, falling and filling the stream of a life. You believed the big choices were made in the small ones. If I had chosen differently in a thousand ways, maybe I wouldn't be here.

She looked up at him. She could remember holding him on her lap, reading a story, kneeling down beside him. Then came the years she spent on her knees because she was concerned how he might turn out. Those years were long gone.

Ruthie handed me a leather-bound notebook and said she wanted me to fill it with everything I could remember.

Nobody knows that but you and God. And you don't even know the half of it. You see, he looks at our lives as a whole, not just today, tomorrow, yesterday, and next week. Not even this year and next. He's not counting your failures and your mistakes and keeping a running tab like heaven's waiter. He sees the end just as well as the beginning. He knows about the pit you're in right now.

Old age teaches you in a very unkind way that things won't necessarily get better. Not in this life. In fact, you can pretty much count on things degenerating. Being content is not a lack of ambition. It's being able to rest and relax and know that your worth doesn't come from what others think of you or even what you think of you.

There had been a connection long ago, but that had been severed. Something in me wanted to hold on, to roll back the clock and never let him go, but I had made my choice, as he had, and we had to live with our choices.