A thoughtful gift from Kelly Marie for my 30th birthday, Shauna Niequist's second book, Bittersweet, is full of stories that inspire me to know God more deeply, to be vulnerable and enjoy friendships to the fullest, to create, to dream, to see the redemption through the mess, to hope, to write!!
QUOTES FROM BITTERSWEET:
"I believe that God is making all things new. I believe that Christ overcame death and that pattern is apparent all through life and history: life from death, water from a stone, redemption from failure, connection from alienation. I believe that suffering is part of the narrative, and that nothing really good gets built when everything is easy. I believe that loss and emptiness and confusion often give way to new fullness and wisdom. But for a long season, I forgot all those things... Looking back now I can see that it was more than anything a failure to believe in the story of who God is and what He is doing in the world."
"Left to our own devices, we sometimes choose the most locked up, dark versions of the story, but what a good friend does is turn on the lights, open the window, and remind us that there are a whole lot of ways to tell the same story."
"Grace is when you finally realize that the other shoe isn't going to drop, ever... These days, I'm on the lookout for grace, and I'm especially on the lookout for ways that I withhold grace from myself and from other people."
"Grace is when you finally realize that the other shoe isn't going to drop, ever... These days, I'm on the lookout for grace, and I'm especially on the lookout for ways that I withhold grace from myself and from other people."
"I don't spend time with people who routinely make me feel like less than I am, or who spend most to their time talking about what's wrong with everyone else and what's wrong with the world, or who really like to talk about other people's money... Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don't spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don't get stuck in the past, and don't try to fast-forward to a future you haven't yet earned."
"This season matters. Christmas is a time when God's presence is more palpable than any other time of year. It's also a time when what we've lost is more present to us, when the pain or the loneliness or the fear are more present than any other time. It's a glorious, beautiful time and also one in which the smallest kindnesses can transform us. It's worth more than pushing and rushing and perfecting your decorations or your homemade cookies."
"If you've been marked by what might have been, you don't forget. You know the day, the years. You know when the baby would have been born. You know exactly what anniversary you'd be celebrating... It makes the calendar feel like a minefield, like you're constantly tiptoeing over explosions of grief until one day you hit one, shattered by what might have been. On most days, for me, it's all right. But for today, for a minute, it's not all right.. I don't know what date it is for you - what broke apart on that day, what was lost, what memories are pinned forever to that day on that calendar. But I hope that on that day... you hold yourself open and tender to the memories just for a moment."
"I can tell you to this day what people said and, much more hurtfully, who said nothing at all... When you're mourning, when something terrible has happened, it's on your mind and right at the top of your heart all the time. It's genuinely shocking to you that the sun is still shining and that people are still chattering away on Good Morning America... When you're in that place, it's a gift to be asked how you're doing...So when there's bad news or scary news or something falls apart, say something. Send a note. Send a text. Send flowers. And if you don't know what to say, try this: 'I heard what happened, and I don't know what to say.'"
"I believed that doing it all over again exactly the same way, but with a different ending, a happy ending, would be such a beautiful story... I realized something, as I tried to untangle my sadness and anger and confusion. I had believed that the miscarriage was an open wound that would only be healed by a healthy pregnancy. So I've been waiting on a pregnancy to move me out of this terrible season of loss. And I've been weighing down a pregnancy that doesn't even exist yet with truckloads of expectation and pressure. I realized that I need to close the wound now, that it's unfair to me and to an unknowable future to leave it open any longer."
"Life hands us opportunities at every turn to get over ourselves, to get outside ourselves, to wake up from our own bad dreams and realize that really lovely things are happening all the time."
"This season matters. Christmas is a time when God's presence is more palpable than any other time of year. It's also a time when what we've lost is more present to us, when the pain or the loneliness or the fear are more present than any other time. It's a glorious, beautiful time and also one in which the smallest kindnesses can transform us. It's worth more than pushing and rushing and perfecting your decorations or your homemade cookies."
"If you've been marked by what might have been, you don't forget. You know the day, the years. You know when the baby would have been born. You know exactly what anniversary you'd be celebrating... It makes the calendar feel like a minefield, like you're constantly tiptoeing over explosions of grief until one day you hit one, shattered by what might have been. On most days, for me, it's all right. But for today, for a minute, it's not all right.. I don't know what date it is for you - what broke apart on that day, what was lost, what memories are pinned forever to that day on that calendar. But I hope that on that day... you hold yourself open and tender to the memories just for a moment."
"I can tell you to this day what people said and, much more hurtfully, who said nothing at all... When you're mourning, when something terrible has happened, it's on your mind and right at the top of your heart all the time. It's genuinely shocking to you that the sun is still shining and that people are still chattering away on Good Morning America... When you're in that place, it's a gift to be asked how you're doing...So when there's bad news or scary news or something falls apart, say something. Send a note. Send a text. Send flowers. And if you don't know what to say, try this: 'I heard what happened, and I don't know what to say.'"
"I believed that doing it all over again exactly the same way, but with a different ending, a happy ending, would be such a beautiful story... I realized something, as I tried to untangle my sadness and anger and confusion. I had believed that the miscarriage was an open wound that would only be healed by a healthy pregnancy. So I've been waiting on a pregnancy to move me out of this terrible season of loss. And I've been weighing down a pregnancy that doesn't even exist yet with truckloads of expectation and pressure. I realized that I need to close the wound now, that it's unfair to me and to an unknowable future to leave it open any longer."
"Life hands us opportunities at every turn to get over ourselves, to get outside ourselves, to wake up from our own bad dreams and realize that really lovely things are happening all the time."
"I understand the temptation to draw an angry X through a whole season or a whole town or a whole relationship, to crumple it up and throw it away, to get it as far away as possible from a new life, a new future. But I think that's both the easiest and most cowardly choice... The harder I look, the more thankful I am for what I learned, what I became, what God gave me and what God took away during that season."
"We dilute the beauty of the gospel story when we divorce it from our lives, our worlds, the words and images that God is writing right now on our souls... Tell your story. Don't allow the story of God, the sacred, transforming story of what God does in a human heart, to become flat and lifeless... If you have been transformed by the grace of God, then you have within you all you need to write your manifesto, your poem, your song, your battle cry, your love letter to a beautiful and broken world. Your story must be told."
"We dilute the beauty of the gospel story when we divorce it from our lives, our worlds, the words and images that God is writing right now on our souls... Tell your story. Don't allow the story of God, the sacred, transforming story of what God does in a human heart, to become flat and lifeless... If you have been transformed by the grace of God, then you have within you all you need to write your manifesto, your poem, your song, your battle cry, your love letter to a beautiful and broken world. Your story must be told."
~Shauna Niequist
Great book, beautifully written. And it makes me eager to write my own stories, my own book.
Allison Vesterfelt (another blogger I like) recently wrote about the link between numbing ourselves to pain and struggling to be creative... That when we numb our hearts to what is hard and painful, it also numbs them to celebrating what is good and makes it difficult to write creatively and be inspired by new ideas. It really made sense and challenged me, because I want so much to write a book that is full of life and beauty and heart, so being alive to my heart is part of that process!
It may not be obvious on the outside yet, but I know that God is reawakening hope. God is challenging me and using friends who truly care to support and encourage and hold me accountable in doing what it takes to get well and be healthy, emotionally and physically. He is teaching me, through Shauna's book and through the book of Ecclesiastes (of all things) to remember what is really important. I am thankful. My heart is relaxing and enjoying life more than I have in a while, and I'm starting to dream again, and it's good. My hope and prayer is that God will give me the wisdom to see and write my story in a way that brings hope and healing and the light of Christ to others.
"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made His light shine in our hearts..."
~2 Cor. 4:6
Allison Vesterfelt (another blogger I like) recently wrote about the link between numbing ourselves to pain and struggling to be creative... That when we numb our hearts to what is hard and painful, it also numbs them to celebrating what is good and makes it difficult to write creatively and be inspired by new ideas. It really made sense and challenged me, because I want so much to write a book that is full of life and beauty and heart, so being alive to my heart is part of that process!
It may not be obvious on the outside yet, but I know that God is reawakening hope. God is challenging me and using friends who truly care to support and encourage and hold me accountable in doing what it takes to get well and be healthy, emotionally and physically. He is teaching me, through Shauna's book and through the book of Ecclesiastes (of all things) to remember what is really important. I am thankful. My heart is relaxing and enjoying life more than I have in a while, and I'm starting to dream again, and it's good. My hope and prayer is that God will give me the wisdom to see and write my story in a way that brings hope and healing and the light of Christ to others.
"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made His light shine in our hearts..."
~2 Cor. 4:6
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