Shannon

“Abusers and abusive organizations may concede the basic reality of the wrong—“Yes, this happened”—but quickly add statements that either soften their responsibility or promote their integrity: “We value all people and only want what is best for everyone involved.” If these concessions do their job, the accused will stay in power, stay in favor with the community, and stay far from the shame their actions deserve.”
― Wade Mullen, Something's Not Right: Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse--and Freeing Yourself from Its Power

“It was as if, because of the very strangeness of my heritage and the worlds I straddled, I was from everywhere and nowhere at once, a combination of ill-fitting parts, like a platypus or some imaginary beast, confined to a fragile habitat, unsure of where I belonged. And I sensed, without fully understanding why or how, that unless I could stitch my life together and situate myself along some firm axis, I might end up in some basic way living my life alone.”
― Barack Obama, A Promised Land

“I didn’t choose Christ. Nobody chooses Christ. Christ chooses you or you’re dead. After Christ chooses you, you respond because you must. Period. It’s not a pretty story.”
― Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

“Spiritual truths that we believed when we weren’t grieving are still true. They just don’t feel true. God doesn’t waste pain. Never. Part of me doesn’t want to say this because it has become clichéd. But it’s also truth. He doesn’t waste pain. He doesn’t waste grief. Period. Full stop. He meets us under whirring fans or beside oceans, in cold bedrooms or curled up on couches. He is as present at six as he will be at sixty. He speaks to us in our grief and in our pain. And he never, ever gives up on us, even when we give up on ourselves.”
― Marilyn R. Gardner, Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging