The Forest of Vanishing Stars

by Kristin Harmel

“Lives are circles spinning across the world, and when they’re meant to intersect again, they do.

Perhaps they need only know whether you are kind, decent, capable, well-intentioned. It is within your own heart that you find God. And we all walk our own path toward him. Don’t we?”

“I don’t think you have to let go of your old life to have a new one,”

People should always help others in need; there was no other way for the human race to survive.

But what about the danger they couldn’t see, the treacherous, icy water of their own decisions? Perhaps there was no protection against that.

how was it that she was so easily able to survive but so confused when it came to what should have felt like a basic social interaction?

In the times of greatest darkness, the light always shines through, because there are people who stand up to do brave, decent things. What I am trying to say, Yona, is that in moments like this, it doesn’t matter what you were born to be. It matters what you choose to become.”

“Do not be afraid to ask your questions. But you must always be sure your heart is open to hear the answers.”

But the forest knew no difference when it came to race, religion, or gender; it smiled and frowned upon all of them in equal measure, sometimes providing protection, sometimes peril. “By the grace of God, may we all be vanishing stars.”

“I’m broken, too. But sometimes it’s the jagged edges that allow us to fit together. Sometimes it’s the breaks that make us strong.”