Jerry Sittser > Quotes

“The experience of loss does not have to be the defining moment in our lives. Instead the defining moment can be our response to the loss. It is not what happens to us that matters so much as what happens in us.”
― Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss

“It is therefore not true that we become less through loss—unless we allow the loss to make us less, grinding our soul down until there is nothing left but an external self entirely under the control of circumstances. Loss can also make us more. In the darkness we can still find the light. In death we can also find life. It depends on the choices we make.”
― Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss

“But in coming to the end of ourselves, we can also come to the beginning of a vital relationship with God. Our failures can lead us to grace and to a profound spiritual awakening.”
― Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss

“I did not get over the loss of my loved ones; rather, I absorbed the loss into my life, like soil receives decaying matter, until it became a part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it.”
― Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss

“We must dare to pray even as we doubt... True faith is like a light that begins to flicker, however faintly, in the darkness that beckons us to pray even when we can hardly find the faith to pray.”
― Jerry Sittser

“We do not always have the freedom to choose the roles we must play in life, but we can choose how we are going to play the roles we have been given.”
― Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss

“The sorrow I feel has not disappeared, but it has been integrated into my life as a painful part of a healthy whole. Initially, my loss was so overwhelming to me that it was the dominant emotion—sometimes the only emotion—I had. I felt like I was staring at the stump of a huge tree that had just been cut down in my backyard. That stump, which sat all alone, kept reminding me of the beloved tree that I had lost. I could think of nothing but that tree. Every time I looked out the window, all I could see was that stump. Eventually, however, I decided to do something about it. I landscaped my backyard, reclaiming it once again as my own. I decided to keep the stump there, since it was both too big and too precious to remove. Instead of getting rid of it, I worked around it. I planted shrubs, trees, flowers, and grass. I laid out a brick pathway and built two benches. Then I watched everything grow. Now, three years later, the stump remains, still reminding me of the beloved tree I lost. But the stump is surrounded by a beautiful garden of blooming flowers and growing trees and lush grass. Likewise, the sorrow I feel remains, but I have tried to create a landscape around the loss so that what was once ugly is now an integral part of a larger, lovely whole.”
― Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss

“So, God spare us a life of fairness! To live in a world with grace is better by far than to live in a world of absolute fairness. A fair world may make life nice for us, but only as nice as we are. We may get what we deserve, but I wonder how much that is and whether or not we would really be satisfied. A world with grace will give us more than we deserve. It will give us life, even in our suffering.”
― Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss

“Jesus wants us to devote our time and energy to all the little tasks we must do every day, not just to the big decisions we have to make every so often. The little responsibilities we do prepare us for big responsibilities later on, good decisions in the little things set the stage for big opportunities yet to come, and faithfulness in things that appear to have only modest importance enables us to respond wisely to duties that seem—and perhaps are—very important.”
― Jerry Sittser, The Will of God as a Way of Life: How to Make Every Decision with Peace and Confidence

“learned gradually that the deeper we plunge into suffering, the deeper we can enter into a new, and different, life—a life no worse than before and sometimes better. A”
― Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows through Loss

“We come to know the will of God as a life calling through experience itself. We discover what our calling is in the same way an artist paints on a canvas or a person falls in love. We learn by trying, by experimenting, by doing. Our calling is inseparable from the journey. In one sense, it is the journey.”
― Jerry Sittser, The Will of God as a Way of Life: How to Make Every Decision with Peace and Confidence

“Laying up treasures in Heaven, as Jesus called it, does not leave much capital leftover for investments on earth. Though our calling may have earthly value, it may not receive much earthly applause. Heaven judges success differently from earth.”
― Jerry Sittser, The Will of God as a Way of Life: How to Make Every Decision with Peace and Confidence