Shannon L. Alder

"When love and duty are one then grace is within your soul."

"Sometimes, a person isn’t looking to increase their lifestyle, status or ego when they fall in love. Sometimes, they just want that special someone that is just like them. The one person that truly understands how they suffer because they have gone through it too. They want to wake up beside someone that knows their trials intimately. They want a teammate that doesn’t say they get it, but someone who knows it, lived it and survived it. They have been looking for that person their entire life because they feel alone and misunderstood. They are tired of people telling them not to care about other people, when that is not who God designed them to be. The depth of their soul can’t be reached by their partner standing at the top looking down. They want to come home to their “own kind”--the person that has run the same dark corridors they have traveled in their mind. They want to build a life with someone that would never break their heart, push them away or give up on them. They don’t want the person that has to win. They want the rescuer that has been to the fearful boundaries of their heart, but knows the way back to life. When they meet this person they will never forget them because they will come into their life with all the fire they possess and never leave their soul."

"The best of who you are is not from who you have in your life, rather who they helped you become because they loved you."

"Behind every angry soul is a wounded child that just wanted you to love them for who they are."

"You must do what you need to do to survive, but you will never survive your own heart if you don't also make it a need."

"You can have regret from yesterday, fear tomorrow, but peace today by sharing your heart’s deepest feelings. A life spent being fearful of showing your soul is a life not worth living."

"If you want to discover the true character of a person, you have only to observe what they are passionate about."

"To be a follower of Christ and not just a fan means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you."

"I was never weighed down by beauty in my lifetime. However, I was beaten down by the sad fears of my gender- women who didn't allow you to feel pretty or rejoice in who you are, unless it fell beneath how they thought about themselves."

"When you take the high road you will see things that some people can't."

"You might not get the apology you deserve. You might not get answers to explain the actions of others. You might not get truth that makes sense to you. You might not get people to understand what you went through because of them. You might not get communication. You might not get maturity. You might not get mercy or even common decency. You might not get respect or the chance to explain your side of the story. However, you do get to choose how people treat you. God loves you enough to bring people into your life who won't hurt you, abuse you, betray you, lie and gossip about you, psycho analyse you, break your heart or make you an option or choice. He will bring people into your life that will love you, respect you, fight for you, show gratitude for your love and want to be a part of your life mission. The best part of this is you don't have to convince them of your worth. They want to be there. They know your value. They know your struggles. They are in touch with their own faults and understand you struggle just like everyone else. They won't hold you to a greater standard then they do themselves. They care about you and don't want to see you cry, feel discouraged or give up on this life. When you know the power of who you are and what you have to accomplish you will scratch your head in disbelief that you allowed other people to dictate who you are based on little knowledge of what God knows about you and your life purpose. Letting go isn't about accepting defeat or acknowledging you were wrong. Sometimes letting go is realizing that God has something better in store for you."

"Who would you impress if the world was blind?"

"Being different is a revolving door in your life where secure people enter and insecure exit."

"You are not a victim. You are a willing participant that has created your own anxiety through your negative mind, insecurities and actions. If you want to secure your future then the only way is through love, forgiveness and the willingness to admit you have participated in the uncomfortableness you are experiencing now. Stop telling yourself you are justified in hate, indifference, silence or bias. You are not. You can't build a positive life through battling others. The world is full of victims. No one wants to hear that story. People want to know how you did what the majority wouldn't do-you forgave and built up your enemies. It is seems totally rare and unheard of these days to swallow your pain and take the high road, but guess what? Those are the leaders that people admire and want to know. Those are the 1% who change the world and people's lives. So why do you want to be like the world when you can be beyond it?"

"Telling the world you are trying is not doing."

"The empty spaces of your soul are the ones you search for, pray for and want so desperately to be filled. They are also the spaces that will never be filled, until you are ready to do something you have never done."

"Evolving is not arrogance. It is confidence that won't be pulled backwards, by those that feel left behind."

"You always had it in you to create miracles, but you forgot that it required you to do the opposite of what you are doing now."

"No one can change a person, but a person can be the reason someone changes."

"There is no perfection, only beautiful versions of brokenness."