Shannon L. Alder

"If you want to be happy you have to study people who are happy. You have to hang out with people that are happy. Life won't go in the direction you want, by simply trying to stay positive in a life you're not happy with. You have to know what you want and why you truly want it so badly. When you figure that out then you need to change your current identity, in order to fit the type of person you envision would make those dreams come true. Happiness is not reliant on the actions or inactions of other people. It is your “courage in motion” toward your dreams."

"God doesn't hand you an easy life because you will grow in it. He hands you a dream with hurdles, obstacles, setbacks, battles and challenges because he knows the real you is at the finishing line."

"When you really want something, you will give up a million times, but your heart keeps taking you back to the starting line."

"Fight for what you want because forever is a long time to be a quitter."

"Don't look for the ninety percent of the darkness in a person's soul. Look for the ten percent of light they have left, then lend them yours because light was meant to be shared."

"When you are no longer afraid is when you can be yourself."

"Letting go of people doesn’t mean you never loved them. Sometimes, it is the greatest act of love because it teaches them to be accountable for how they treat people who care. Maybe, not now, but years from now, they will look back and realize that kindness is more than yelling casual suggestions to a person that is drowning in their sea of apathy."

"Family and friends become oppressors the moment they teach you that loyalty is more important than what is done to people outside your social circle. What they are really saying is this: Save yourself because God is more interested in an intact family or social circle that looks righteous, rather than you being a person of integrity that has compassion for others. It is this absurdity that teaches the wrong version of God and creates the next generation of "me" centered individuals."

"Life will either shrink or expand based on your decision to have courage."

"It takes a hell of a lot of courage to walk into your own story, but to be the hero of your own life you have to rescue yourself."

"God isn't a place of fresh starts. He isn't a hideout. He is not a destination. He is not a clean break. He is not a cop out for indecision. He is not a straight line. He is a circle. He will take you back to whatever you ran from if he needs you to heal your scars and others. He is a God of justice and compassion. The greatest growth a soul can experience doesn't come from doing service to strangers that have no impact on your life. It comes from doing service to people that have hurt you or you have hurt them. To truly devote yourself to God is to travel down roads that are hard to revisit. However, he will keep taking you there, until you have healed yourself or others."

"The most important gift you can give your children is the importance of standing up to injustice. Children will remember moments spent with you. However, it isn't togetherness that creates humane parents and righteous kids. It is the example of integrity that a parent sets and the on going lessons they teach about compassion toward others throughout their lives. A good father or mother teaches their children that cruelty is not something you cause or ignore, rather it is the moment you suit up for war."

"Reality is a dream that someone was brave enough to conquer."

"Your blessings lay beyond your fear."

"A kind word will never replace the conversation that God has prompted you to repeatedly have."

"They said my solution was foreign because I lived on another planet. It required honesty. It required communication. It required kindness. It required integrity. It required compassion. It required empathy. It required a deep understanding of what it meant to be humane. It required courage to be something above the others. It required proving your love of God."

"How you correct your mistakes will define your character and commitment to a higher power."

"Leave a legacy of love, not a legacy of fear."

"Sometimes, it is how you shine in the darkness during other people's misery that is remembered more than anything you could have said or done when you have suffered just as much."

"You can't live in your mind and expect those dreams to become real, without the work. Reality requires actions that might feel scary, but that is what is required if you want to find true love. Don't expect it to come and rescue you. You have to rescue yourself."