Quotes from Stasi Eldredge

He made you you - on purpose. You are the only you - ever. Becoming ourselves means we are actively cooperating with God's intention for our lives, not fighting him or ourselves.

God does not live in a perpetual state of disappointment over who we are.

We won't be perfect on this side of heaven. But Jesus is perfect. Always. We are becoming more holy and true. Jesus already is. His name isn't "Becoming." It is "I Am." Perfection isn't the goal. Jesus is.

Fear in its most wicked, powerful form cripples our souls and warps the very fabric of our true hearts.

God not only accepts us, he embraces us.

Christianity is not a promise to enjoy a life without pain nor to be given a shortcut through it. It is a promise that pain, sorrow, sin—ours and others'—will not swallow us, destroy us, define us, or have the final word. Jesus has won the victory. And in him so have we.

It's good to dream. We can't out-give God. We can't out-love him, and we can't out-dream him.

We need to increasingly live from the fullness of our whole hearts in order to become who we are meant to be and play the significant role that is ours to play. We want to be awake and alert. We want to be women who live their lives on purpose.

The issue is fear. But the deeper issue is trust. Can we trust our lives, our futures, and the lives of those we love to God? Can we trust a God we can't control? Can we trust this God whose take on life and death and suffering and joy is so very different from our own? Yes. Yes, we can. Because we know him. And we know he is good.

We have to choose life. Choose risk. Choose love. The only safe place for our hearts is to dive deeply into the magnificent, eternal, ridiculous, overwhelming love that God has for us.

It is actually helpful to acknowledge the truth that we are just as quirky as everyone else and that God loves quirky!

When we have a change of heart on the inside, it manifests itself on the outside.

A true friend loves you when you are being kind and when you are PMS-ing all over the place. They may not love what you are doing, or the dragon you are manifesting, but they love you. They know who the true you is, and even in the midst of your living as an imposter to your very self, a friend calls you up and out. A friend sees who you are meant to be and beckons you to rise to the higher version of yourself.

You were born into a glorious mess, and we all have become something of a glorious mess ourselves. And in the midst of our mess, God has a thing for us. He does not despise our humanity or despair over our condition as we sometimes do. He does not turn his face away from us in our failings or our self-centeredness, as we would like to. He is not surprised.

Jesus weeps for you and with you, longs for you, hopes for you, dreams of you, and rejoices over you with singing. He is the One who has battled all the forces of hell to free you and who battles still.

Being beautiful is a quality of spirit recognized primarily in a woman whose soul is at rest because she believes her God when he calls her lovely.

The very fact that we long for the change we do is a sign that we are meant to have it. Our very dissatisfaction with our weaknesses and struggles points to the reality that continuing to live in them is not our destiny.

Our very dissatisfaction with our weaknesses and struggles points to the reality that continuing to live in them is not our destiny.

We want to be women who advance. The kingdom of God is advancing, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Don't you want to advance along with it? Don't you want to help it to advance? And don't you want to advance into the deeper realms of the heart of God? Advance into more healing, more deliverance, more intimacy, more life? Fear makes us retreat. Love causes it to advance.

No longer bound by fear, how high can we soar? How deep can we dive? How much delight can we experience? Yes, there will be sorrow too—it's a part of the deal—but life gets the final word. Life. Life always gets the final word. Every single time. Forever. Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name!

It is not too late. It is not too hard. You are not too much. God's mercies are new every morning. There is mercy in his eyes even now.

You are deeply and completely loved (Rom. 8:38–39). You are totally and completely forgiven (1 John 2:12). When God sees you, he sees the righteousness of Jesus (2 Cor. 5:21). You mean the whole world to him (John 3:16). He thinks you are beautiful. Right now (Song 4:1). He is committed to your restoration (Rom. 8:29). You are not now, nor have you ever been, alone (Heb.

Awakening and owning the dreams that God has placed in our hearts isn't about getting stuff or attaining something. It's about embracing who we are and who he has created us to be. In him.

In fact, this could be the most important thing we ever learn about God– that he yearns for relationship with us... We see him as strong and powerful, but not as needing us, vulnerable to us, yearning to be desired.