Philip Gulley > Quotes

“I can only make one person happy each day.

Today is not your day.

Tomorrow doesn't look good, either.

—Frank the 70 year old secretary, chapter 9”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony: A Harmony Novel

“Too many times we pray for ease, but that's a prayer seldom met. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won't be swept asunder.”
― Philip Gulley

“Our first night in the house, my wife and I were lying in bed. I was thanking God for my blessings. Thanking God for not having to pull aside a dining room curain to have my children near—that they were right down the hall, asleep in their Superman underwear, their little chests rising and falling to the pulse of their dreams.

I thought how some blessings are fickle guests. Just when we think they're here to stay, they pack their bags and move. When we're in the midst of blessing, we think it's our due—that blessing lasts forever. Next thing you know we're sitting helpless beside a hospital bed. All we're left with is a name on a wall, a toy in a desk, and memories that haunt our sleep.

Sometimes we come to gratitute too late. It's only after blessing has passed on that we realize what we had.

—chapter 2”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony: A Harmony Novel

“In the end . . . . . . . Stand where we feel led. Stand straight, stand tall, and try to remember that other folks might be led to stand elsewhere.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony: A Harmony Novel

“...We always look for Christ amid magnificence. But ... Christ has a history of showing up amide the unlovely. Born in a dirty stall. Crowned with thorns. Died gasping on a shameful cross atop a jagged rise.

We don't need to be beautiful for Christ to take us in. He is equally at home when we're broken-down and dirty. It's like George Herbert wrote:
'And here in dust and dirt, O here,
The lilies of God's love appear.'
We think magnificence is in short supply, that dust and dirt choke out the lilies. But that's not true and never was. Lilies may root in dirt, but they reach for heaven—and in the reaching, reveal their magnificence.

—chapter 24”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony: A Harmony Novel

“Wrinkled women lifting their faces, chasing their youth.
Fat men sucking in bellies.
Poor folks putting on airs.
Sinners acting like saints.
All of us keeping pace with our companions, stepping lively in this dance of deceit.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony: A Harmony Novel

“Love, even that love which is imagined, is sometimes all we have to get us through.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony: A Harmony Novel

“We just never know. We think we do. We think we have life figured out, and in our arrogance we become hard. But life has a way of humbling us, of softening us. ”
― Philip Gulley

“The leaves of our blessed lives fall to the ground and if we're wise like my grandfather, we gather them in a pile and keep them safe lest the winds of forgetfulness blow them away.”
― Philip Gulley

“When love takes you by the hand and leaves you better, that is home. That's the place to stake your claim and build your life.”
― Philip Gulley

“Raw pain alarms. us. It reminds us that life isn't as orderly as we'd hoped. We demand that pain settle down before we shuffle it off to the quiet table. We want pain to stay in its own little section, want to keep it from spilling over into the other parts of life. Just like . lunch trays. Keep pain in its own little compartment.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony: A Harmony Novel

“When I was in second grade, my teacher, Miss Maxwell, read from The Harmony Herald that one in every four children lived in China. I remember looking over the room, guessing which children they might be. I wasn't sure where China was, but suspected it was on bus route three. I recall being grateful I didn't live in China because I didn't care for Chinese food and couldn't speak the language.

—Sam Gardner in chapter 1”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony: A Harmony Novel

“I have failed to be an appropriate model for Christian conduct many times. At significant points, when I should have led by example, I failed to embody the very principles I publicly affirm. I have been intolerant, greedy, slothful, and even dishonest. Were someone to say I was an example for how others should live, I would be flattered but would know their assessment was inaccurate. To say Jesus is 'only an example,' as if that were a small thing, underestimates not only the profound difficulty of serving such a role, but also discounts its rarity.”
― Philip Gulley, If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus