Shannon L. Alder

"When people want to win they will go to desperate extremes. However, anyone that has already won in life has come to the conclusion that there is no game. There is nothing but learning in this life and it is the only thing we take with us to the grave—knowledge. If you only understood that concept then your heart wouldn’t break so bad. Jealousy or revenge wouldn’t be your ambition. Stepping on others to raise yourself up wouldn’t be a goal. Competition would be left on the playing field, and your freedom from what other people think about you would light the pathway out of hell."

"When does God turn a want into a need? When you feel the same way almost every day. Your thoughts can be distracted for a short period of time, but your mind will always take you back to the one place that feels like home."

"How can you follow your heart, unless you know why you have allowed it to be empty for so long and didn't have the courage to fix it?"

"With dark raven paper and twinkling white ink, I wrote my heart in the night’s sky."

"You won't understand where home is until you realize it is the only place your mind takes you back to when every journey ends badly."

"There are so many things we can have in this world, but only 10 percent of it changes the condition of someone's heart."

"A brilliant mind was first a listener that observed the actions of the people that loved and hated them, then found a way to express their feelings, when real communication was lost."

"There is no end to the things you don’t understand. The mind will search for a lie to give it an answer you can understand, but one song at the right time will challenge what you accept."

"What are words without the melody?"

"Between where you stand today and where God needs you to be is a thousand lies, a thousand reasons to give up and an army of people willing to break down your spirit and motivation. You will be hurt. You will be labeled. You will be betrayed. You will get lost. You will make mistakes. You might even want to give up because a few people that say they stand for Christ appear to stand against you. Don't do it! God only gives you what he knows you can handle. So, guess what? If God knew that you could travel through hell and get to the other side then you must be one ---BADASS WOMAN!"

"Every talent you have is not wasted. It is there because of a reason and God will open that door when the right time comes along to use it."

"And when one song stops playing write the one that will save your life."

"Music is feelings in search of words."

"Sometimes, we expect life to work a certain way and when it doesn’t we blame others or see it as a sign, rather than face the pain of the choices we should or shouldn’t have made. Real healing won’t begin until we stop saying, “God prevented this or that.” Often in our attempt to protect ourselves from pain, we leave things to fate and don’t take chances. Or, we don’t work hard enough to keep the blessings we are given. Maybe, we didn't recognize a blessing, until it was too late. Often, it is the lies we tell ourselves that keeps us stuck in a delusion of not being responsible for our lives. We leave it all up to God. The truth is we are not leaves blowing toward our destiny without any control. To believe this is to take away our freedom of choice and that of others. The final stage of grief is acceptance. This can’t be reached through always believing God willed the outcomes in our lives, despite our inaction or actions. To think so is to take the easy escape from our accountability. Sometimes, God has nothing to do with it. Sometimes, we just screwed up and guarded our heart from accepting it, by putting our outcome on God as the reason it turned out the way it did. Faith is a beautiful thing, but without work we can give into a mysticism of destiny that really doesn't teach us lessons or consequences for our actions. Life then becomes a distorted delusion of no accountability with God always to blame for battles we walked away from, won or loss."

"Too many people spend their life in fear of making a mistake. However, here is the truth: Fear is the mistake. If you block out all the doubts and listen only to what you feel in your heart, then follow that course, you waste less time in indecision and spend more time being authentic. Life is too short to settle for parttime happiness."

"There are 613,806,639 men in the world. Statistically, God has got you covered! So, never worry about one person not caring about you. Someone up to the challenge will always take his place."

"The only man meant to be in your life is a man that knows your worth."

"Live is not about constantly fighting to keep someone in your life. It is about constantly fighting for a better life together."

"When you least expect it is when the person you always dreamt of will finally show up."

"God has a plan and guess what? The plan is to stop waiting for him to do everything for you. The person you want in your life is not a sign. Not a clue. Not a wish. Not a prayer. Not a tarot card or a matter of timing. It is work. It is devotion, and like any dream if you want it then God will open doors for you to obtain it. You just have to stop setting the bar so low that everything below is a sign from God and everything above is asking too much."