PARADOXICAL

I asked God to take away my habit.

God said, No.

It is not for me to take away,
but for you to give it up.

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole.
God said, No.
His spirit is whole, his body is only temporary.

I asked God to grant me patience.

God said, No. Patience is a byproduct of tribulations;
it isn't granted, it is learned.

I asked God to give me happiness.

God said, No

I give you blessings;
Happiness is up to you.


I asked God to spare me pain.

God said, No.
Suffering draws you apart from
worldly cares
and brings you closer to me.



I asked God to make my spirit grow.
God said, No.
You must grow on your own,
but I will prune you to make you fruitful.

I asked God for all things
that I might enjoy life.
God said, No.
I will give you life,
so that you may enjoy all things.


I asked God to help me LOVE others, as much as He loves me.
God said...Ahhhh,
finally you have the idea.

Choice can be our will aligned either to self-will or God's will (or calling). Calling is 'just' that, a calling, which we can choose to heed or not. Community life or any decision can be either way, depending on the motive. Of course, only God can ever know whether our choice is genuine (a sincere, active response to God's call) or suspect (coming from some other questionable motives such as brokenness).

Our pains, our little deaths, teach us a great deal about living.

I died a mineral, and became a plant. I died a plan and rose an animal. I died an animal and I was a man. Why should I fear? What was I less by dying? - Rumi

We can't give something we don't have. But if the only way to gain our life is to lose it, then we must find ourselves first before we can lose it because we have nothing to give up if we don't.

The nature of the job does not determine the avlue of the person. The nobility he puts in his job dictates the value of that person.

Other people's opinion does not have to become our reality. Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. We don't know the key to success, but one key to failure is to please everyonhe. So why should we waste our time thinkng about what others will tell abuot us. Besically, we just have to do what makes us genuinely happy.

Who can be good, if not made so by loving. -St. Augustine

Patience is not the ability to wait, but the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting. God makes all things beautiful in his time.

In asking for miracles, we are seeking a practical goal, a return to inner peace. we're not asking for something outside us to change, but for something inside us to change. -Marianne Williamson

Sometimes you have to fall from the mountain to realize what you are climbing for. Obstacles are palced in our way to see if what we want is really worth fighting for. From every wound there's a scar and every scar tells a story. A story that says I survived.

A faithful friend is an image of God. -French proverb

To reflect God in all that is, both here and now, my heart must be a mirror empty bright and clear. -Angelius Sibelius

Just who will you be? This isn't answered with your resume or accomplishments. That's about what you are. You have worth as a human being, as a person worthy of being loved just be being your own unique self. are you still trying to measure up to other people's expectations or standards? What matters is what I expect of myself, what my heart feels, what my inner voice is telling me.

My temptations have bene my masters in divinity. - Martin Luther

We liev with two choices: to live life as though nothing is a miracle, and as though everything is. -Albert Einstein

MY LORD GOD,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think
I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire
in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything
apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me
to face my perils alone.
AMEN

Thomas Merton

“No man should desire to be happy who is not at the same time holy. He should spend his efforts in seeking to know and do the will of God, leaving to Christ the matter of how happy he should be.” A. W. Tozer quote

Is there a point where perfection and imperfection ever meet? Yes! When we find God and God finds us and turns to good the mess we created.

Prayer does not keep pain away from us. Instead it makes us suffer more since our love for God is a love for a suffering God, and our entering in God's intimacy is entering into the intimacy where all of human suffering is embraced in divine compassion. HJMN.

Once you're real, you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always. Margery Williams

What makes you open your eyes, rise up in the morning, and get going?

If God speaks in silence, how do we translate it? A. - I guess we have to enjoy each day, and be contented even when we're not sure of the answers to all our questions, even when we're in the cloud of unknowing, choosing instead to trust in God's love.

Death is the beginning of a life that never ends.

How do you live the present moment so as not to fall into listnessness (acedia)?

A drop of water breaks a stone, not by force, but by dropping continuously. That's the power of patience and perseverance that God wants us to have.

The psalms speaks our feelings so poetically. As we recite it, we don't cover up our true emotions of anger, frustration, anvy, loneliness, darkness, but instead we claim it as our, our humanity. And before we know it, it becomes praise, we feel an inner joy, our holiness.

The psalms are good psychologists. They defeat our tendency to be holy without being human first.

We're made to suffer for eing who and what we are and we become adept at inventing means of escape. The pain comes from one's identity, that grows out of the response to a call, can't be escaped or pushed aside. It must be gone through. He led me into the heart of the pain. -The Cloister Walk

Perfection consists in being what God wants us to be. St. Therese of Lisieux

What are we that you make ourselves known to us? St. Bernard's question to God

How would you know if you're happy? It's when you're alone yet you don't feel lonely or incomplete. It's when everything is wrong yet you find simple reasons to smile. It's when you wake up every morning without any regret from yesterday.

We know ourselves only in God who constantly reveals Himself, apart from Him everything remains false.

We love only because we are loved. We know only because we are know. We understand because we are understood.

Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later, a collection of mistakes is called experience.. exactly what life is made of.

It takes couraeg to move away from the safe place into the unknown, even when we know that the safe place offers false safety and the unknown promises us a saving intimacy wth God. -HJMN