Marla > Recent Status Updates

"...there is more to reality than flesh and blood, than we should pray more than we do, lean into the Holy Spirit more than we have, and show more grace to everyone more than we'd like. For even if they are an enemy, they are not THE enemy."

"The lie believed of our neighbor is usually that they are unworthy of our joy, our love, our godly praise or even our sincere prayers because of who they are or what they have.....See the sinfulness in such a position? It inclines us to disregard the image of God in people...."

" The mask you wear before men will do no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are. He wants to be gracious to you. You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers as if you were without sin....Thank God for that."

The final break-through to fellowship does not occur, because, though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout,as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners."

" The church does not need brilliant personalities but faithful servants of Jesus and the brethren."

" The truth is everyone is hurting from something--even the people you think have it all together."

" Why does social media enthrall us so much? Don't we know from my story and countless others that it's all a lie? We only post things the way we want everyone else to perceive it. Sure, it can be lined in truth but we still pick only the best photo with the best lighting from our best side. We edit the caption and then edit it again until it reads exactly like we hope everyone believes about us"

" Therefore, let him who until now has had the privilege of living a common Christian Life with other Christians praise God's grace from the bottom of his heart. Let him thank God on his knees and declare: It is grace, nothing but grace, that we are allowed to live in community with Christian brethren."

(Speaking of people in the Bible who murdered, were adulterers, and schemers) "God can bring good out of the extremes of our own folly. God can restore the years the locusts have eaten. It is said that those who never make mistakes never make anything. Certainly these men made mistakes, but through their mistakes, God taught them to know His grace...in a way that would never have happened otherwise."

" Our God is a God who not merely restores, but takes up our mistakes and follies into his plan for us and brings good out of them.... Slippings and strayings there will be, no doubt, but the everlasting arms are beneath us; we shall be caught, rescued, restored. This is God's promise; this is how good He is."

"Bent and broken, but in better shape."

"Success is not money! Success is you are fully loving what you are doing. That only is success."

" How many of our churches today are sound, respectable---and lukewarm?"

"..We lose our wrong ideas of God and the church.(Thank God!) What makes it so difficult is how much we invested of our lives into a certain way of following Jesus, into certain applications of biblical truths, only to realize much of it was foolishness or perhaps even wrong. We feel betrayed by a church tradition a leader or even God himself. We realize God...is much larger, more incomprehensible than we thought."

" He knows, and foreknows, all things.... He therefore will have the last word both in world history and in the destiny of every man. His kingdom and righteousness will triumph in the end, for neither men nor angels shall be able to thwart him"

Quiet the noise. Clear the clutter. And then? Consider that your next right thing might be disruptive, bring discomfort, or reveal a difficult truth. What people need most is your solid presence and your steadfast insistence on being okay with or without their consent.

Before rushing forward, take some time to reflect on the path behind you.
What do you need to bring with you?
What are you able to leave behind?
Where have you seen God along the way?
Ask for what you need to know. Remain open to seeing things in ways you might not expect. We don't stop living just because we are unsure. We continue on, trusting God as we simply do the next right thing.

Booker T. Washington "It is impossible to hold a man in the gutter, without staying there with him"

"I wrote this book because I have long suspected that the best Americans are not always famous. More than 20 years of research has confirmed my intuition. The best Americans are not the critics, they are the doers. They are the people who went for broke when everyone else yelled to turn back. They are those who know that one becomes great because of who they lift up, not who they put down."

" I couldn't have imagined that nearly one year from that very day we would walk out of this room for the last time. I couldn't have imagined willingly leaving....
I couldn't have imagined then, that in order to hold on to my faith, I would have to let go of my church."

"In college, my best friend confessed his most secret sin to our pastor. Sitting on our pastor's deep set porch, he told him what he was most ashamed of. Then my pastor said something that utterly transformed my friend: "We need you in our church, not in spite of your struggle but because of it."

" The Psalms express every human emotion, but taken up again and again, they never simply leave us as we are. They change us. The transformation they effect isn't to turn our sadness into happiness. They don't take grieving people and make them annoyingly peppy and optimistic.
They form us into a people who can hold the depths of our sorrow with utter honesty even as we hold to the promises of God."

"I've seen the oldest story, redeemed by the ancient story, more times than I can count. Each one a miracle. "

"Don't you forget it, Lucy my girl. The God of the stars...He is coming, and coming, and coming after you. Always. The heart of a father who will never forget his daughter."

"Such freedom to know our limits. And to know the God who has none"

"We lift even our disobedience into the arms of the Father; He It's strong enough to carry the weight." So many words of simple, profound encouragement and wisdom in this book.

"Healthy prayer necessitates frequent experiences of the common, earthy, run of the mill variety. Like walks and talks and good wholesome laughter. Like work in the yard, and chit chat with neighbors, and washing windows. Like loving our spouse, and playing with our kids...To be spiritually fit to scale the Himalayas of the spirit, we need regular exercise in the hills and valleys of ordinary life."