Quotes from Elizabeth Musser

Thinking too much just brings it back to me, me, me—but thanking takes my eyes off myself and my mistakes and puts them on others, on things bigger than myself. I can't stand here very long without being humbled at how small I am and amazed at how big and beautiful our world is.

When you love, it will hurt. You have to choose to forgive, again and again. But it's worth it. That's the crux of human relationships, Dobbs. The sweetest thing. Loving deeply. And forgiving.

Have you noticed that it is usually easier to judge than obey? Religious people are especially good at it. I tried

always a choice, even in not choosing.

seeking to be free of something and freed to something.

He forced his mind clear of other thoughts and waited. Stillness, he had learned, did not come naturally. He practiced it. Sometimes, as he waited, he heard the Lord's voice coursing through his spirit almost audibly. Other times he heard nothing, but he felt filled up and satisfied and understood.

The absolute gut-level truth was that he had no desire for God to interrupt him in this way.

Honey, I've learned to ask not why but what? 'Now that I'm in this impossible place, Lord, what do I do next?

It's okay to ask questions, sweetheart. You're going through some rough waters. God is bigger than your questions. Don't you worry about that.

Our part is to get to know God, as a Father and a friend. But to understand Him? His ways are far past our understanding. Infinitely far.

Pain and blessings, deep wounds and healed scars, and, thank heaven, a God who could make sense of it all.

Faith and mental stability aren't mutually exclusive.

Aching for one thing and enjoying something else aren't mutually exclusive.

In her enthralling debut, Circle of Chalk, Christina McClelland tackles the complicated and sometimes controversial subject of IVF with compassion and honesty. McClelland doesn't shy away from the messiness but rather invites the reader into the decades' long journey. The story twists and turns until the very last page. Elizabeth Musser, author of The Swan House, When I Close My Eyes, The Promised Land

Dying to something old, a pattern that is comfortable in its dysfunction, so that one can move to a different system, a new freedom.

Some people ask me what it's like to be forgiven, to feel grace. It's like walking on a long stretch of beach with nothing in sight but sky and waves and sand. With the sun piercing its brightness, the water tickling my toes, the roaring of the sea singing omniscience and power and yet, a deep peace, the waters changing from sandy brown to light green to a heavy blue, the waves cresting with the white peaks and then rushing to find my toes.

Before the trip I read that pilgrims often bring a small rock or stone from their home. It represents a burden they've been carrying or a loved one they are grieving or a sin for which they're doing penance. At some point on the Camino, they lay down that stone. The most popular place is at the Cruz de Ferro in Spain, the highest point on the Camino Frances.

Sometimes the breaking of things is cruel, and sometimes it is necessary, and sometimes it is just an accident." "My mother was a painting in the storm, convinced down to the last fibers of canvas and the last drop of paint on the brush that the rain was an important part of the making of a masterpiece.

God dwells in your heart, it means you are safe and that He will never, ever leave you. He becomes your dwelling place??a place of shelter and caring and protection.

God doesn't want us to rescue our children. He's the Rescuer.

Life takes many twists and turns. It bruises and burns and rips apart. But it also loves and heals and forgives.

It's a dangerous thing to want everyone's approval, Gabriella. You must be willing to stand firm and take the risk of being misunderstood. We must find our approval at the feet of our Master.

No wound. No scar? Yet as the Master shall the servant be, And pierced are the feet that follow Me, But thine are whole, Can he have followed far who has no wound, No scar?

After all, I'd never met anyone who would just start praying over a glass of iced tea.