"Think of disappointment as a happy little surprise, Comfort. For instance . . ." Great-uncle Edisto pushed his glasses up on his nose and smiled like he had just invented a new thought......"There's always something good to come out of disappointment, Comfort. You'll see."
I could tell by the rhythm and tone of his voice that he was working up to his grand finale: "Open your arms to life! Let it strut into your heart in all its messy glory!"
"I don't like messes," I told him. "I like my plans." -Each Little Bird that Sings by Deborah Wiles
The quote above is from a book that
Anna and I read for our Mother/Daughter book club last fall. I love the conversation between the
great uncle and Comfort (the main character in the book) because it exemplifies
how I want to embrace life and yet it also speaks honestly about how it’s hard
to accept things because “I like my plans!” Isn’t that the best description—which can be applied to a terrible fall or a job search or a just about anything that does not go according to plan...
Abba moving to the rehab part of the hospital yesterday....
"If you’re
looking for a thirty-minute story with a happy ending every time, it’s hard to
find in the Bible- just as it is in real life. Instead, we discover the
presence of God with us in our troubles, helping us deal with them, helping us
discover solutions to them, helping us deal with the new problems inevitably
created by those solutions, and so on. Through it all, we discover God’s
faithful desire to help the downtrodden, the oppressed, the exploited, and the
forgotten."
–Brian McLaren We Make the Road by Walking
dinner for freshmen in my colloquium class at our house last night
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