Mary Cummings

“[A]s the generation of the Great Depression and the world wars passes on, so does the memory of what it took to build the system of abundance that we enjoy today. As America becomes predominantly made up of people who didn't have a hand in building the system in the first place, it is producing more and more people who want to destroy the system because they don't understand it. They don't appreciate how fragile their freedom is, how precious their system of government, how rare their way of life. And so they entertain fantasies of tearing it down. In some cases, those fantasies are becoming reality.”
― Yeonmi Park, While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector's Search for Freedom in America

“We want deliverance without the desert. But God deliberately designs deserts to draw us to himself. [...] It can feel like the desert itself is the source of the pain, but, in reality, the desert often serves to reveal a heart issue: what we think we can't be happy without. In other words, sometimes the desert reveals the comforts, idols, and treasures we lean on for sustenance. [...] The hope we have in the desert is the assurance that God will never leave us, never forsake us, and never send us to a place he isn't going with us.”
― Ruth Chou Simons, Now and Not Yet: Pressing in When You’re Waiting, Wanting, and Restless for More – The Perfect Mother’s Day Gift for Christian Moms

“When your love for a person is so profound that it’s part of who you are, then the absence of the person becomes part of your DNA, your bones, and your skin.”
― Ann Napolitano, Hello Beautiful

“We probably can do more to affect the quality of our lives by controlling our expectations than we can by doing virtually anything else. The blessing of modest expectations is that they leave room for many experiences to be a pleasant surprise, a hedonic plus. The challenge is to find a way to keep expectations modest, even as actual experiences keep getting better.”
― Barry Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less