Melanie Dale > Quotes

“People always talk about the difference between joy and happiness. I’ve decided the big difference is that joy hurts. Happiness is a wonderful feeling and joy is a daily dying to your original plans and scooping up God’s plans and not hating him for them.”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“we don’t learn to love our lives and then check a box when it’s done. We learn to love our lives every day, one day at a time, forever.”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“I am amazing at falling apart. I fall apart like a boss. It’s a gift, really.”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“As Mr. Leezak says in Just Married, “You never see the hard days in a photo album . . . but those are the ones that get you from one happy snapshot to the next.”2”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“I went through the motions but didn’t always believe that God would provide. Maybe if I worked hard enough, at least he wouldn’t get in my way.”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“Bibles and prayers are great. Also great are people who have gone to school for years and years to learn how to help you work through things. The”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“There’s commonality in the ways that we fear, and there’s commonality in the ways that we fail, and when we partner in the pain, it gives way to sharing in the joy as well. From”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“The soil of suffering and its painful growing conditions yield deep roots and beautiful fruit: great comfort, transparency, heart healing, profound joy. —”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“I believe that we are better together. We make each other better moms, better humans. We need each other, because mothering is just too darn hard.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“The truth is, so many of us are messy and cracked. We're just afraid to talk about it.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“When your life falls off the edge and into a trench, fourth-basers don't just throw you a rope. They crawl down in the trench with you.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“We aren't just dating moms to help pass the time while our kids are little. That's part of it, that's a perk, but there's more. We date moms and do life together, so that when life gets hard, we have support. We have people who truly know us and are invested in us and love us no matter what.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“We need those friends who can see our homes in all their messy glory, who can see us wearing jammie pants and no makeup. If you can trust them with your real face, that's a step to trusting them with your real life. We need friends who can see our homes and faces when they're messy, and we need friends who can see our parenting and marriages when they're messy.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“Art is a terrible preacher, but a tremendous conversationalist.”
― Melanie Dale

“God, thanks for never leaving or forsaking me. And thanks for the freedom to worship you in limbo. I’m really glad you’re so big I can’t figure you out. It’s actually comforting.”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“There's freedom in learning to be wrong. You give the people around you permission to be right.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“Friends are fallible. They have their own lives. They are not our Jesus and we cannot suck all the life out of them in an effort to feel whole and loved. So we won't put all our faith and hope in them, but we will appreciate the incredible support and encouragement they provide.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“God makes beauty from ashes. But first everything has to burn down.”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“Forgiveness doesn't always mean togetherness. Sometimes walking away from a relationship is the only way to find peace.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“I can’t make myself accept my circumstances, but I can be completely honest with God about how upset I am and put it back on him to change my heart. He’s God. Let him do the work in you. All you have to do is show up and talk to him. You don’t have to change your mind. You can just plug in and listen to what he has to say. I”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“I suffer from heat-induced, Hulk-like rage syndrome, so I’m not going to make my best impression with my eyeballs frying on my face. Know thyself.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“I’ve been changed by a God who loved me through disappointment and continues to carry me through the unfairness of life.”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“Mothers are strong and powerful, and when we join together in relationship, mountains move.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“But then, I was convicted by the simplicity of his need—my company. That’s my significance. To provide company for my sweet boy while he’s building a cave of throw pillows and couch cushions. I feel boring whenever I talk to someone who isn’t in this same stage of life. But today Elliott reminded me that I’m not boring to him. And after all, what matters more than that? We”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“They are not our Jesus. But he can use them to speak truth into our lives and hold us together when we're falling apart. My friends aren't my Savior, but sometimes he uses them to point me to him when I can't find my way.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“want to be a “Me too” friend. I want to be a “Me too” mom and wife. A safe place where people can share their fears and struggles and find refuge and empathy, rather than pity or shame. Maybe”
― Melanie Dale, It's Not Fair: Learning to Love the Life You Didn't Choose

“We aren't just moms. We are just a connected organism of nurturing world changers. And that is just awesome.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends

“In A Life That Says Welcome, Karen Ehman writes about offering hospitality, not entertainment. She says: Entertaining puts the emphasis on you and how you can impress others. Offering hospitality puts the emphasis on others and strives to meet their physical and spiritual needs so that they feel refreshed, not impressed, when they leave your home.”
― Melanie Dale, Women are Scary: The Totally Awkward Adventure of Finding Mom Friends