Quotes from Jane Kirkpatrick

Your other mother, Sarah, she tells me to send heavy thoughts to the wind, to make room for lighter ones

Kindness is the beaded belt that binds all together. Expect kindness. Whatever you give out will be returned

they listened to understand rather than to respond.

Not sure how ye can look so settled after such an unsettling day" Joseph said. "I know you're resilient but even strong and solid trees should look a little windblown following a storm!" "I learned to cope by leanin into the wind" I said, "just like you told me.

She says she's too old to fight and too fat to run, so she just has to rely on her good nature to survive.

It's as though I keep reliving the loss, not just Bryce's death, but my accident. Every time change drops by and wants to be fed, I wonder if I'll have enough or if it'll eat me out of house and home." "Grief's ravenous, isn't it? I suppose that's where the emptiness comes from, and we keep trying to fill it with Ã¢â'¬Â¦ food and blame, irritations and what all. Keeping busy.

I felt numb and agitated at the same time, reaching out to her as I spoke. I wondered how such a peaceful morning could be converted in a heartbeat to the slow motion of a nightmare.

Don't deny the dreams. They're a gift given to make your life full. Accept them. Reach for them. We are not here just to endure hard times until we die. We are here to live, to serve, to trust, and to create out of our longings.

And there it is, my greatest challenge: to face the uncertainty of each day, trusting that there will be enough—enough to meet our needs and enough to give away.

if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten

My mother always said to keep my eyes open for the unexpected good, the little treasures.

You ride horse of good intent," Naomi said. "It does not arrive at destination.

Give my effort to the present, let God handle the future.

You haven't made the leap yet, Love...." "The leap?" "Onto a cloud of faith believing that we won't fall through.... Not only that we won't fall through but that we will thrive on that cloud of faith, draw new energy each time we need it, knowing that God is an unending source of hope no matter the trial.

When your father died, I thought I'd die too. But then your heart keeps beating, you keep taking breaths and getting hungry and needing sleep, so you know you're not dead. One day, something makes you laugh and you're ripped with guilt because you can. A month passes and then a year, and you've gone on with your life even knowing you couldn't, but you do.

Some of what I remembered was not my own story. It was twisted like tobacco strands, tangled with a dozen other memories of people who were here and others who were not even a part of the terror.

That everything that happens can be converted to good. We simply do not know the good of it, our world being so vast and wide and us but a small part in it

Danger is everywhere, but fear, that's a choice we make.

A tragedy tears away a hope; a kindness brings it back.

draw on to change the circumstances she found herself in. She'd build a ladder with courage as a rung. Maybe kindness would lift her higher too. It was the image she fell asleep pondering.

Flowers remind us to put away fear, to stop our rushing and running and worrying about this and that, and for a moment have a piece of paradise right here on earth. God offers healing through flowers and brings us closer to Him.

The essential code must include . . . how to crawl from the wreckage when this life falters, how to plunge to the cellar of sorrow and grope for the ladder that might bring you back into some kind of light, no matter how dim or strange.

Thinking if only I had done something differently, the accident wouldn't have happened. But that's what accidents are, for the most part: unplanned. We can only imagine how to pick up the pieces and wing anew through the sky, reaching higher.

Living in the what-ifs is dangerous.