Steve N

“We’ve all fallen, and we have the skinned knees and bruised hearts to prove it. But scars are easier to talk about than they are to show, with all the remembered feelings laid bare. And rarely do we see wounds that are in the process of healing. I’m not sure if it’s because we feel too much shame to let anyone see a process as intimate as overcoming hurt, or if it’s because even when we muster the courage to share our still-incomplete healing, people reflexively look away.”
― Brené Brown, Rising Strong: The Reckoning. The Rumble. The Revolution.

“In too many marital conflicts, we work too hard at winning the argument and too little at winning the heart. You can express your feelings and thoughts, even share criticisms and complaints, but the end goal of marital conflict should be care for your spouse’s soul, not trying to rack up the most points. Seeking to win is not love.”
― Matt Chandler, The Mingling of Souls: God's Design for Love, Marriage, Sex, and Redemption

“truth hit me in that moment. All my life, I’ve been running. Running to the next greatest thing. An adventurer. A thrill seeker. Hungry for more. If things got hard, fight or flight. I would kick and scream for a while, and when that didn’t yield the proper results, I would take flight. It happened in my closest relationships. Including my arguments with Gabe. If I was not able to win or be understood, I’d grow silent and escape. Far away. To a place that allowed me to maintain control. But the silent treatment and hibernation never brought relief; instead, I felt abandoned by my own doing. All alone. By my own choosing. This defense of self-preservation left me on the altar of self-destruction. My greatest fear is feeling trapped—it has followed me all my life.”
― Rebekah Lyons, Freefall to Fly: A Breathtaking Journey Toward a Life of Meaning

“Embrace the common: a Sunday afternoon watching sports, Starbucks with a friend, cooking dinner for a neighbor, taking the dog for a walk, heading to a job that is making you more humble and needy because it is so unfulfilling, or working through conflict with a friend you have offended. This and more is all part of it. So do your everyday and your ordinary. Godliness is found and formed in those places. No man or woman greatly used by God has escaped them. Great men and women of God have transformed the mundane, turning neighborhoods into mission fields, parenting into launching the next generation of God’s voices, legal work into loving those most hurting, waiting tables into serving and loving in such a way that people see our God.”
― Jennie Allen, Anything: The Prayer That Unlocked My God and My Soul