Lottie

“I loved Alabama in the evenings, when everything got still and lazy and beautiful, when the sky felt full, fat with bugs.”
― Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom

“As we see in the miracles of Jesus, God is against suffering. In the person of Jesus, he has assaulted it. Whenever we see Jesus and suffering together, we see him undoing it.”
― Sarah Clarkson, This Beautiful Truth: How God's Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness

“In the passing of dishes we practice delayed gratification. In complimenting the meal, we practice the power of spoken encouragement. In withholding criticisms, we practice the virtue of silence, we are reminded that lots of things we think aren’t worth saying. In roses and thorns and questions and pepper games, we practice telling stories, recalling memories, celebrating and sympathizing with each other.9 We practice forgiving when someone spills something (again!). And in waiting until we’re excused, we practice sticking around even when we don’t want to—the root of learning loyalty.”
― Justin Whitmel Earley, Habits of the Household: Practicing the Story of God in Everyday Family Rhythms

“There ought to be a different word for it once you’ve been married for enough years. When you’ve long since passed the point where it stopped feeling like a choice. I no longer choose you every morning, that was a beautiful thing we said on our wedding day, I just can’t imagine life without you now. We aren’t freshly blooming flowers, we’re two trees with intertwined roots, you’ve grown old within me. When you’re young you believe that love is infatuation, but infatuation is simple, any child can become infatuated, fall in love. But real love? Love is a job for an adult. Love demands a whole person, all the best of you, all the worst. It has nothing to do with romance, because the hard part of a marriage isn’t that I have to live seeing all your faults, but that you have to live with me seeing them. That I know everything about you now. Most people aren’t brave enough to live without secrets. Everyone dreams about being invisible sometimes, no one dreams of being transparent. Marriage? There ought to be a different word for it after a while. Because there’s no such thing as “eternal infatuation,” only love lasts that long, and it’s never simple. It requires a whole person, everything you have. The whole lot.”
― Fredrik Backman, The Winners