Quotes by Speakers - Page 132

More than any other attribute of Jesus, his humility is the key to a healthy marriage. If two people make it their goal to imitate the humility of Christ, everything else will take care of itself.
Francis Chan
Wisdom from God brings peace and assurance to your heart.
Sue Detweiler
Acceptance is a conscious choice to receive your spouse as God made him or her.
Sue Detweiler
God can renew your marriage and transform it into something better than you can imagine.
Sue Detweiler
Being connected to Jesus is what gives us life. He is the Life-Giver. The life-giving joy, power, and purpose for marriage flow from the One who created us to be in relationship with each other. Apart from Him, we can’t do anything.
Sue Detweiler
To experience intimacy in marriage, both partners need to feel safe.
Sue Detweiler
Keeping your heart open provides the opportunity for greater intimacy.
Sue Detweiler
If you change your dance steps you will change the dance.
Sue Detweiler
God’s voice is always consistent with His Word.
Sue Detweiler
Inviting God to write the chapters of our loves story involves work on our part - not just a scattered prayer here and there, not merely a feeble attempt to find some insight by flopping open the Bible every now and then. It's seeking Him on a daily basis, putting Him in first place at all times, discovering His heart.
Eric Ludy
If God is going to write your loves story, He's going to first need your pen.
Eric Ludy
No matter how many rules we make for ourselves, rules don't create godly relationships. Only leaning on our faithful Father and longing to please Him with everything we do will set the stage for a beautiful romance!
Eric Ludy
Intimacy is about sharing something with your spouse that you don’t share with anybody else. It’s letting him in. It’s laughing together. And it’s also feeling that deep hunger for each other!
Sheila Wray Gregoire
A good marriage is supposed to be one where each spouse secretly thinks he or she got the better deal.
Anne Lamott
But you will find yourself disarmed utterly, and your accusing spirit transformed into loving forgiveness the moment you remember that you did, in fact, marry only a sinner, and so did he.
Elisabeth Elliot
His grief at your leaving is also his fear of losing the power he has had for lifetimes. Those days are over for him, and he is in turmoil. But if you are to help him on his soul's quest, you will leave him. It is your job--your sacred contract--to free him, and to free yourself.
Elizabeth Lesser
The fact of your heart's enfoldment in mine is evidence enough that there is, underneath it all, some hidden order to this world.
Eric Micha'el Leventhal
It seems to me that one of the great hazards is quick love, which is actually charm. We get used to smiling, hugging, bantering, practicing good eye contact. And it's easier then true, slow, awkward and painful connection with someone who sees all the worst parts of you. Your act is easy. Being with you, deeply with, is difficult.
Shauna Niequist
When you begin to fantasize about what you don't have, you begin to kill what you do have. #marriage
Jayce O'Neal
If you’d rather watch your kids grow up than see the face of your Savior today, you don’t grasp the beauty of God. If you worry about what would happen to your children if you were gone, you don’t understand the providence of God.
Francis Chan
Their manipulation is psychological and emotionally devastating – and very dangerous, especially considering the brain circuitry for emotional and physical pain are one and the same (Kross, 2011). What a victim feels when they are punched in the stomach can be similar to the pain a victim feels when they are verbally and emotionally abused, and the effects of narcissistic abuse can be crippling and long-lasting, even resulting in symptoms of PTSD or Complex PTSD.
Shahida Arabi
To any survivor who may be doubting whether what they’ve experienced is truly abuse, remember that emotional, verbal, and psychological abuse will never be, and should never be, considered part of the messy equation of a normal relationship. As both metal health professionals and survivors can attest to, the traumatic highs and lows of being with a narcissist, a sociopath, or a psychopath are not the natural highs and lows of regular relationships. That suggestion is quite damaging to society and to survivors all around the world.
Shahida Arabi
The one who wins the argument is usually the one who acts less like Christ.
Francis Chan
Oh, dear child. You've got a lot to learn about marriage. Any food can choose the boy who send her heart into a flurry. But there's a big deep divide between desire and devotion. You better not choose the boy who makes you dizzy. No ma'am. You have to choose the one who is steady. Stable. Safe. Choose the one who loves you, through and through, for who you really are. The one who wouldn't change a single thing about you even if he could.
Julie Cantrell
Conviction says, 'My behavior was wrong.' Satan, on the other hand, floods our hearts with shame. Shame says, 'There is something wrong with me.
Dale Forehand
This is not another book about seeking fulfillment in your singleness. As beings created in God’s image, we were designed for relationship—that’s why extended singleness leaves so many women discontent. It’s also why we should be intentional about finding fulfillment in marriage. Getting married isn’t just something that’s ‘nice if it happens.’ Marriage is what most of us are called to pursue.
Candace Watters
Sex is not about genitalia. It’s about relationship. When God said ‘the two shall become one flesh,’ he didn’t mean it only physically.
Sheila Wray Gregoire
Marriage is more about work than about divine luck, more about finding someone to love than about finding someone to meet your own laundry list of personal needs.
Mark Gungor
I would encourage you to make your own investigation of the one whom, as He died, prayed for those who killed Him: 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.' That is love's ultimate expression.
Gary Chapman
What we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage.
Gary Chapman
Often a Christian man or woman falls prey to that cruel and vexatious spirit, wondering how to find marriage, who, when, where? It is on God that we should wait, as a waiter waits--not for but on the customer--alert, watchful, attentive, with no agenda of his own, ready to do whatever is wanted. 'My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.' (Ps. 62:5 KJV) In Him alone lie our security, our confidence, our trust. A spirit of restlessness and resistance can never wait, but one who believes he is loved with an everlasting love, and knows that underneath are the everlasting arms, will find strength and peace.
Elisabeth Elliot
If someone were to ask whether communications skills or meekness is most important to a marriage, I'd answer meekness, hands down. You can be a superb communicator but still never have the humility to ask, 'Is it I?' Communication skills are no substitute for Christlike attributes. As Dr. Douglas Brinley has observed, 'Without theological perspectives, secular exercises designed to improve our relationship and our communication skills (the common tools of counselors and marriage books) will never work any permanent change in one's heart: they simply develop more clever and skilled fighters!
John Bytheway
A good marriage is where both people feel like they're getting the better end of the deal.
Anne Lamott
We learn from pain that some of the things we thought were castles turn out to be prisons, and we desperately want out, but even though we built them, we can't find the door. Yet maybe if you ask God for help in knowing which direction to face, you'll have a moment of intuition. Maybe you'll see at least one next right step you can take.
Anne Lamott
I have lived in the shadow of loss—the kind of loss that can paralyze you forever.I have grieved like a professional mourner—in every waking moment, draining every ounce of my life force.I died—without leaving my body.But I came back, and now it’s your turn.I have learned to remember my past—without living in it.I am strong, electric, and alive, because I chose to dance, to laugh, to love, and tolive again.I have learned that you can’t re-create the life you once had—you have toreinvent a life for yourself.And that reinvention is a gift, not a curse.I believe your future self is a work of art and that science can help you create it. If you’re lost . . . if you’re gone . . . if you can barely absorb the words on thispage . . . I want you to hold this truth in your heart: when it’s your time to go, you won’t wish you had spent more time grieving; you’ll wish you had spent more time living.That’s why I’m here. And why you are, too. Let’s live like our lives depend on it.
Christina Rasmussen
Pain too much to handle also comes with exquisite beauty, as common as dirt, as unexpected as grace.
Shannon Huffman Polson
Happiness isn’t about pretending there’s no pain. It’s about accepting the pain as a part of healing and doing your best to nurse your own wounds with love and patience.
Vironika Tugaleva
That sassy low classy, but dress real cheap-fly-n-fancy, with a chip on her shoulder -- she's just a bitterly wounded dove, wanting to be sieged by love.
T.F. Hodge
I feel like when I give trust that isn't earned, I receive hurt that isn't deserved.
Steve Maraboli
The definition of tragedy is when people do not communicate yet struggle to conceal the pain.
Ken Poirot
Only nurture a broken heart that recognizes it, and is willing to put in the work of minding.
T.F. Hodge
Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the tune, and not be dismayed at the 'rests.' They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear. If we sadly say to ourselves, "There is no music in a 'rest,'" let us not forget '"there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson! - Ruskin
Leslie Ludy
A happy person is not without sorrow or grief. Happiness is the acceptance of pain, not the lack of it.
Vironika Tugaleva
The storm is out there and every one of us must eventually face the storm. When the storm comes, pray that it will shake you to your roots and break you wide-open. Being broken open by the storm is your only hope. When you are broken open you get to discover for the first time what is inside you. Some people never get to see what is inside them; what beauty, what strength, what truth and love. They were never broken open by the storm. So, don't run from your pain — run into your pain. Let life's storm shatter you.
Bryant McGill
To be hurt is, sometimes, a lucky thing—a fortunate interruption along a road that otherwise may have ended in blindly hurting others. When we heal from being hurt by a person, we realize the importance of not hurting people. Perhaps it is not the most fun way to learn this lesson, but it is a method of life's teachings nonetheless.
Vironika Tugaleva
What the biblical narrative tells me – and, in particular the account of Christ’s passion- is that while I may not be able to trace the artists hand at all times, I can always trust his motives. The God who is in control of all things, who acts behind the scenes in all things, is also the God who willingly suffers. He is the one I can shout at, cry with and find comfort in. His heart, if not all his ways, is clear to me because the cross wore it on his sleeve for all to see. This God is able to sympathise with those who suffer not simply because his is 'all knowing' - an attribute ascribed to any version of divinity - because he has experienced pain first hand.
John Dickson
The path to misery is paved by the tears of those trying to make others happy.
Steve Maraboli
It's a cycle... Religion is a source of relief for those who seek to anesthetize the pain that comes from following its beliefs.
Steve Maraboli
The past does not define me, it ignites me. The past is not a piece of me, it has placed me
Ricky Maye
When we get hurt, our bodies immediately start trying to heal that hurt. This works for emotions as well. If we were scarred socially, by an incident of rejection or bullying, we immediately start trying to heal. Like pus comes out of wounds, emotions flow from psychological wounds.And what do we really need at that moment? When we are out of that dangerous situation that scarred us, and we become triggered by some little thing - what do we need? Do we need someone to look at us and say, "Wow, you're really sensitive, aren't you?" or "Hey, man, I didn't mean it like that."? Do we need someone to justify their actions or tell us to take it easy, because the situation didn't really require such a reaction?And, from ourselves, do we really need four pounds of judgment with liberal helpings of shame? Do we need to run away, to suppress, to hate our "over-sensitivity" to situations that seem innocuous to others?No. We do not need all of these versions of rejection of a natural healing process. You would not feel shame over a wound doing what it must do to heal, nor would you shame another. So why do we do this to our heart wounds? Why do we do it to ourselves? To others?Next time some harmless situation triggers you or someone around you into an intense emotion - realize it's an attempt at emotional healing. Realize the danger is no longer there, but don't suppress the healing of old dangers and old pains. Allow the pain. Don't react, but don't repress. Embrace the pain. Embrace the pain of others.Like this, we have some chance at healing the endless cycles of generational repression and suppression that are rolling around in our society.Fall open. Break open. Sit with others' openness. Let love be your medicine.
Vironika Tugaleva
Your pain is trying to tell you something. It is not an accident, a curse, or an inconvenience. Pain is a form of self-communication.
Vironika Tugaleva
The author of the hymn 'Amazing Grace', John Newton, who once was a slave ship captain, and who became a Christian preacher and an enemy of the slave trade, once said: 'I have reason to praise [God] for my trials, for, most probably, I should have been ruined without them.' The author of The Gulag Archipelago , Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who suffered for twenty years in the hellish prison camps he describes in that book, wrote: 'Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.' This does not mean that Newton would have chosen to go through his trials, or that Solzhenitsyn in any way enjoyed the terrible suffering of his imprisonment. But it means that in retrospect they can see that God used those difficulties to bless them in the long run.
Eric Metaxas
Emotional pain cannot kill you, but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let yourself heal.
Vironika Tugaleva
Every bit of pain can be a blessing if we choose to listen to its message.
Vironika Tugaleva
When I'm triggered, I think, "This will last forever" or "What if this lasts forever?" I get thoughts about how I should give up, run away, hide, protect myself. These thoughts, I cannot change. What I can change is how I respond to them. Will I unconditionally believe these ideas, or will I accept them as side effects of the temporary experience of pain? Will I act on each thought that arises in the burning fire, or will I hold myself gently and say, "It'll be okay. I know it hurts. I love you"? My power lies in these choices.
Vironika Tugaleva
Life is not for the faint hearted
Nicky Verd
Those who overcome great challenges will be changed, and often in unexpected ways. For our struggles enter our lives as unwelcome guests, but they bring valuable gifts. And once the pain subsides, the gifts remain. These gifts are life's true treasures, bought at great price, but cannot be acquired in any other way.
Steve Goodier
Temporary, but excruciating, pain is the price of healing.
Vironika Tugaleva
Hold on to the thought that no emotion lasts forever, no matter how wonderful or how terrible the emotion may be. The tears may last a little longer than you would like, but it will get better. I promise.
Osayi Emokpae Lasisi
Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. The cross was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though “legions of angels” might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.
Elisabeth Elliot