Quotes about Vulnerability

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.

Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it.

Jesus didn't say, 'Blessed are those who care for the poor.' He said, 'Blessed are we where we are poor, where we are broken.' It is there that God loves us deeply and pulls us into deeper communion with himself.

One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then.

Fear secretes acids; but love and trust are sweet juices.

The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.

We bless others naturally through our strengths. But we bless others supernaturally through our weaknesses.

A large user base helps shield us from things we can't control. You can spend years catering to a major corporation, for example, only to see your contact there move on.

Oh, a heart's a poor choice to follow. It's so easily hoodwinked.

You might not need a man--but I need you. That's why women marry, Elizabeth-- to give their inner strength to some weak man.

He must be suffering, too. She had noted the weary sag of his shoulders, the quivering lips, the tear- filled eyes. Somehow she had never thought of him as hurting- of being capable of understanding how she felt.

Once you free yourself from the need for perfect acceptance, it's a lot easier to launch work that matters.