Steve N

“They never tell you when you get born a control freak it will cost you a healthy love life. But it’s true. You can’t control somebody and have intimacy with them at the same time. They may stay because they fear you, but true love casts out fear.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“Anyone can get to heaven—no matter how messy his or her life. And by the same token, anyone can be kept out—regardless of all his or her fancy goodness.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul

“I DON’T KNOW WHY LOVING A WOMAN IS SCARIER than climbing a mountain or sailing an ocean, but it is. A mountain can hurt your body and an ocean can drown you, but in the end you’re still a man for conquering them. Dead or alive, you’re still a man. A woman, though, can rob your manhood and reduce you to a boy at the drop of a word. It’s no wonder we all try to control each other. Sometimes relationships feel like we’re trying to emotionally cuddle with each other at the same time we’re tearing each other down. But love doesn’t control, and I suppose that’s why it’s the ultimate risk. In the end, we have to hope the person we’re giving our heart to won’t break it, and be willing to forgive them when they do, even as they will forgive us. Real love stories don’t have dictators, they have participants. Love is an ever-changing, complicated, choose-your-own adventure narrative that offers the world but guarantees nothing. When you climb a mountain or sail an ocean, you’re rewarded for staying in control. Perhaps that’s another reason true intimacy is so frightening. It’s the one thing we all want, and must give up control to get.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy

“It costs personal fear to be authentic but the reward is integrity, and by that I mean a soul fully integrated, no difference between his act and his actual person. Having integrity is about being the same person on the inside that we are on the outside, and if we don’t have integrity, life becomes exhausting.”
― Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Acquiring a Taste for True Intimacy