Hope

"What are you planting today to harvest tomorrow?"

"I'm not any kind of girl. I don't need man, but I don't hate romance. I think I'm kinda obsessed with romance, really, which is probably why I'm still single. -Mia"

"Through my history's despiteand ruin, I have cometo its remainder, and herehave made the beginningof a farm intended to becomemy art of being here. By it I would instructmy wants: they should belongto each other and to this place. Until my song comes hereto learn its words, my artis but the hope of song.(Part 2 from History is Clearing, p 174)"

"I understand true life doesn't happen when I constantly gaze backwards, mulling over all the injustices others have done or I have done to others."

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree"

"Being broken open by the storm is your only hope."

"You have to have faith if you want to make it out of the woods. Faith is your only hope for deliverance."

"Your past is like a bag of bricks; set it down and walk away. Quit collecting every painful word, memory and mistake. Collect hope."

"Hope floats but effort propels."

"When I was younger, my mom loved to garden. But the flowers would never grow. She kept planting seeds even thought nothing would grow. She just kept trying.''I don't understand.''Because you can't.''What does this have to do with anything'I don't fiddle with my fingers and there's no apology on the tip of my tongue when I say, 'I am my mother's son."

"If we dismiss all of our hard work, including the very foundation we stand on, and its cracks, we won’t get very far because it takes a foundation from which to begin. Be proud, and embrace “your normal."

"The more we focus on who we are in Christ, the less it matters who we were in the past, or even what happened to us."

"a voice called out after me, 'life takes us on many divergent paths, and yet we shall meet one more time! Not in the flesh, but in the sun, man's home"

"If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another; strike out for yourself; don't listen to the shriek of your relations...don't be afraid of public opinion in the shape of the neighbours in the next house, when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything is possible, if you will only be energetic and independent and seize opportunity by the scruff of the neck."

"I admire some people for their brilliance and I respect others for their strength. But I am indebted to those who can rekindle my spirit."

"When you love yourself, you love your spirit, so everyone can feel it, because everyone is a spiritual being."

"For I'm afraid of loneliness; shiveringly, terribly afraid. I don't mean the ordinary physical loneliness, for here I am, deliberately travelled away from London to get to it, to its spaciousness and healing. I mean that awful loneliness of spirit that is the ultimate tragedy of life. When you've got to that, really reached it, without hope, without escape, you die. You just can't bear it, and you die."

"I used to think I didn't need anyone. I used to think that I could be complete all alone. I tried to shut my eyes to how frozen I was becoming from the cold shards of glass, as they sank down into my heart and blinded me. I had nothing to be obsessed with, because I had no possessions. That was the only thing that comforted me against my fear of the dismal reality. But... I was lonely... I was sad. And I was desolate. I was supposed to be complete, even when alone...but I just couldn't be. I didn't even have someone's name to call out when I was all alone in the darkness. I wanted to tell that certain someone...because I only had one possession...because I was the only thing to protect or lose... I clasped it tightly to my chest. I couldn't afford to let anyone take it away from me. I wanted to tell that special person that I've only been gasping for breath on that painfully cold winter night, bundled up just like that. And I wanted to tell him that I never wanted to go back to that frozen, snow-covered world. And now, I long for our hearts to thaw together, side by side, flushed red and pulsing with love...and to soon become one."

"I think how we are all broken over one thing or another, how we all limp about, dragging our sorrows & troubles, our failures & disappointments, our perfect loneliness, & how it is when we suddenly open our eyes & see someone next to us dragging their own smashed bones. It seems only natural that we would want to crawl in their direction holding out our hands."

"Sad truth is. . . we all end up alone on some death bed. Yeah? No way to take anybody else's place and no way we can be lying on the same one.”I was at the edge of the white-wed cloth. My shoes filled with concrete, as did my head, looking at the empty shell of what was once a woman full of wonder.“Any way to make someone feel not so alone?” she asked. “The only thing anyone can ever do is help someone feel a little less lonely before they get there.”“How does someone do that?” “Memories. Help create memories. Better ones. Ones to replace the old."