some of my favorite quotes

most of these quotes have been my email signatures at some point and i thought i'd put them all in one place :)

"a woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man has to seek the Lord to find it."

"waiting times are growing times and learning times. as you quiet your heart, you enter His peace...as you sense your weakness, you receive His strength...as you lay down your will, you hear His calling."

"let every vein of your heart be full to the brim with the rich blood of desire, and struggle and wrestle and strive with God for it, using the promises and pleading the attributes of God, and see if God does not give you your heart's desire. believe Him to be more than He is." charles spurgeon

"after a while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning, and company doesn't always mean security. and you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises, and you begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead, with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child, and you learn to build all your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans, and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight. after a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much, so you plant your own garden and decorate your own soul instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers. and you learn that you really can endure, you really are strong, you really do have worth, and you learn, and you learn, with every goodbye, you learn..."

"the beauty of finding yourself at a milestone of any meaningful kind in life is not that the journey there was so pretty. or so successful. in many ways, the mysterious beauty of the whole thing is that the "getting there" was so awkward, wobbly, inconsistent, and even down-right messy that most of the time, you thought you'd never make it. what makes life on this frightful sod so exquisite is God's merciful propensity to perform divine tasks amid deeply flawed people. to paint intricate colors on a torn-up canvass. we can recognize a miracle when we see one because we know that, for God to use us, redeem us, or complete one thing of value in us, it would have taken nothing less.” ~beth moore

"oh, how we need the whole Christ! open our eyes to see the fullness of his excellence. remove the lopsided and distorted images of your Son that weaken our worship and lame our obedience. may the power of the Lion and the love of the Lamb make our faith in Christ unshakable. so deliver us from small dreams and timid ventures and halting plans. embolden us. strengthen us. make us love with fierce and humble love. and in it all, grant that all might see the glory of Christ and that you might be honored through him."~seeing and savoring Jesus Christ by john piper

"our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. we ask ourselves, who am i to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? actually, who are you not to be? you are a child of God. your playing small does not serve the world. there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. we are all meant to shine, as children do. we were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. it's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." marianne williamson

"...then the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom..." ~ anais nin

"joy seems to me a step beyond happiness--happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you're lucky. joy is a light that fills you with hope, faith, and love." ~ adela rogers st. johns

"where the soul is full of peace and joy, outward surroundings and circumstances are of comparatively little account." ~hannah whitall smith