Irene Park > Irene's Quotes

“I believe deeply that God does his best work in our lives during times of great heartbreak and loss, and I believe that much of that rich work is done by the hands of people who love us, who dive into the wreckage with us and show us who God is, over and over and over. There are years when the Christmas spirit is hard to come by, and it’s in those seasons when I’m so thankful for Advent. Consider it a less flashy but still very beautiful way of being present to this season. Give up for a while your false and failing attempts at merriment, and thank God for thin places, and for Advent, for a season that understands longing and loneliness and long nights. Let yourself fall open to Advent, to anticipation, to the belief that what is empty will be filled, what is broken will be repaired, and what is lost can always be found, no matter how many times it’s been lost.”
― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“Everything is interim. Everything is a path or a preparation for the next thing, and we never know what the next thing is. Life is like that, of course, twisty and surprising. But life with God is like that exponentially. We can dig in, make plans, write in stone, pretend we're not listening, but the voice of God has a way of being heard. It seeps in like smoke or vapor even when we've barred the door against any last-minute changes, and it moves us to different countries and different emotional territories and different ways of living. It keeps us moving and dancing and watching, and never lets us drop down into a life set on cruise control or a life ruled by remote control. Life with God is a dancing dream, full of flashes and last-minute exits and generally all the things we've said we'll never do. And with the surprises comes great hope.”
― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

“When you haven’t yet had your heart really broken, the gospel isn’t about death and rebirth. It’s about life and more life. It’s about hope and possibility and a brighter future. And it is, certainly, about those things.
But when you’ve faced some kind of death— the loss of someone you loved dearly, the failure of a dream, the fracture of a relationship— that’s when you start understanding the central metaphor. When your life is easy, a lot of the really crucial parts of Christian doctrine and life are nice theories, but you don’t really need them. When, however, death of any kind is staring you in the face, all of a sudden rebirth and new life are very, very important to you.”
― Shauna Niequist

“I believe in a very deep way that our past is what brings us to our future. When I pray for someone, I thank God for every day of their life, for every moment, for every heartbreak and each moment of happiness that has brought them to be this person at this time. I believe in mining through the darkest seasons in our lives and choosing to believe that we’ll find something important every time.”
― Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way

“Everybody is following somebody. Everybody has faith in something and somebody. We are all believers.”
― Rob Bell

“Take faith, for example. For many people in our world, the opposite of faith is doubt. The goal, then, within this understanding, is to eliminate doubt. But faith and doubt aren't opposites. Doubt is often a sign that your faith has a pulse, that it's alive and well and exploring and searching. Faith and doubt aren't opposites, they are, it turns out, excellent dance partners.”
― Rob Bell, What We Talk about When We Talk about God

“Self-care is never a selfish act - it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give the care it requires, we do it not only for ourselves, but for the many others whose lives we touch.”
― Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

“Mentors and apprentices are partners in an ancient human dance, and one of teaching's great rewards is the daily chance it gives us to get back on the dance floor. It is the dance of the spiraling generations, in which the old empower the young with their experience and the young empower the old with new life, reweaving the fabric of the human community as they touch and turn.”
― Parker J. Palmer

“My life is not only about my strengths and virtues; it is also about my liabilities and my limits, my trespasses and my shadow. An inevitable though often ignored dimension of the quest for "wholeness" is that we must embrace what we dislike or find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confident
and proud of.”
― Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“It is unearned love--the love that goes before, that greets us on the way. It's the help you receive when you have no bright ideas left, when you are empty and desperate and have discovered that your best thinking and most charming charm have failed you. Grace is the light or electricity or juice or breeze that takes you from that isolated place and puts you with others who are as startled and embarrassed and eventually grateful as you are to be there.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, help me, help me' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
― Anne Lamott

“But you can't teach writing, people tell me. And I say, 'Who the hell are you, God's dean of admissions?”
― Anne Lamott

“We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn't mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story. How brightly a better story shines. How easily the world looks to it in wonder. How grateful we are to hear these stories, and how happy it makes us to repeat them.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

“When something happens to you, you have two choices in how to deal with it. You can either get bitter, or get better.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

“Sometimes the story we’re telling the world isn’t half as endearing as the one that lives inside us.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Grace only sticks to our imperfections. Those who can’t accept their imperfections can’t accept grace either.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Here's the truth about telling stories with your life. It's going to sound like a great idea, and you're going to get excited about it, and then when it comes time to do the work, you're not going to want to do it. It's like that with writing books, and it's like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

“Here are two things I found taking the long road, though: Applause is a quick fix. And love is an acquired taste.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
― Mary Oliver

“I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2

“The poet dreams of the mountain

Sometimes I grow weary of the days, with all their fits and starts.
I want to climb some old gray mountains, slowly, taking
The rest of my lifetime to do it, resting often, sleeping
Under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.
I want to see how many stars are still in the sky
That we have smothered for years now, a century at least.
I want to look back at everything, forgiving it all,
And peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.
All that urgency! Not what the earth is about!
How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.
I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.
In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall.”
― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

“No more winter at all. Finch, you brought me spring.”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. —Ernest Hemingway”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it’s the small things that count. Everyone’s so busy waiting in the Waiting Place.”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“That was our friendship: equal parts irritation and cooperation.”
― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. Likewise, I never imagined that home might be something I would miss. Yet as we stood loading our boats in the breaking dawn, on a brand new precipice of Before and After, I thought of everything I was about to leave behind―my parents, my town, my once-best-and-only-friend―and I realized that leaving wouldn't be like I had imagined, like casting of a weight. Their memory was something tangible and heavy, and I would carry it with me.”
― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel

“A man thinks he can fly, but he is afraid to jump. A poor friend pushes him from behind.” He looks up at me. “A good friend jumps with.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“Our lives mean so much more than the frail bodies that carry them.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“If we empty our hearts every night, they won't get too heavy or cluttered. Our hearts will stay light and open with lots of room for good new things to come.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton