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“First the Communists killed all the smart people who made things work in the cities. And now they want to make doing good at anything at all a punishable crime! What has happened to the world? How did we end up in an asylum?”
Is that what it takes to feel like this? To come so close to death, you want to burst for joy because you feel so glad to be alive?
the key to survival under Communism was to be silent, do your job, and not aspire to leadership of any kind. Within three months of his parents’ leaving him to his own wits, he had learned that people who spoke up, people who tried to do things better or tried to teach others a better way, tended to vanish or to die young.
“Our family is home. Wherever we’re together is home. This is home. It doesn’t matter if we’re on the farm or in the beautiful green valley as long as we’re together.”
our job in life is to endure, to be kind, and to constantly put the past behind us and not dwell too much on the future. If you must look back, try to find the beauty and the benefit in every cruelty done to you. If you must think about the future, try to have no expectations about it. Trust in God to guide you through. You understand?”
a man can only rely on himself in times of challenge, and he steeled himself.
What possesses men to do such evil? Are they even human? Can’t they see that when you kill someone or destroy a holy place, the faith always goes on? Don’t they see that in broken hearts and ruins, something always glows?
Do you think I survived the mines and the miserable walk home to hear your constant and never-ending shit-stirring? Wanting this. Fearing that. Condemning that. Comparing this. Destroying that. Judging who is good and who is not. All with your acid tongue!”
After a while, these circles of thought seemed to link up and become a figure eight in her mind:
“She told me once that she believed that life does not happen to you; it happens for you, and that your whole life is a blessed journey of discovery. But you can only see life clearly and relish it when the journey is almost at an end.”
“Everything is our choice.
“What you seek is what you will find, but only if you hunt it with all your heart and mind.”
said. “Always,” Corporal Gheorghe insisted. “The problem is, most people get frustrated when they do not find what they are looking for or don’t do what they are trying to do easily and in a short period of time. They give up after a couple of failures or a couple of years of struggle. The dream that once lit up their heart now begins to darken it, and their thinking changes. They lose faith far too early. They believe far too early that their dream can never exist. The problem is they haven’t stayed true to their heart long enough for the Almighty One to move the moon and stars so the dream
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everything in life was, when it came right down to it, one thing, a supremely intelligent, universal force he called the Divine or the Universal Intelligence, or the Almighty One. I am part of the Divine. You are part of it, too. Everything is part of this life force you can call God, if it is easier to think that way. You are part of God, and God is a part of you. It’s why the Divine understands your thoughts, dreams, and emotions, Martel. The Almighty is in you, and you are in it.”
“Whatever emotions you carry in your heart, Martel, especially love. God listens loud and clear if you feel love. The Almighty also knows if you are feeling good. The Universal Intelligence responds when you are happy or courageous or even if you are just calm. It understands when you are grateful for the miracle of your existence and rushes to help you when you have a dream that helps other people. The Divine hears all the languages of the heart and beauty.”
a way of seeing the world as more than it was, a place where everything was connected and where dreams did come true, a place where imagination, faith, and effort collided with the spark of God’s grace to become whole and real and good.
dreams almost always come true in ways you don’t expect,
through a man’s unrelenting heart and God’s mysterious grace, dreams really can come true.
I have to believe with every fiber of my being, with no doubt that we’ll make it. No doubt.
Then she heard a voice, not in her head speaking words, but in her heart spurring emotion that she understood completely.
surged with an emotional energy that she’d never felt before and never would again, a mother determined to save her children, a wife desperate to hold her husband again, a woman fueled by fear, by love, and by prayer. Her vision tunneled.
all it took to have a good life was a cheerful, grateful mood, a clearly envisioned, heartfelt dream, and the willingness to chase it with an unwavering belief in its eventual realization.
everything difficult he’d had to do seemed to have prepared him for the next difficult thing.
“Don’t chew on the bad things that happen to you, dear. Try to see the beauty in every cruelty. It sets you free. Forgive hurt if you want to heal a broken heart. Try to be grateful for every setback or tragedy, because by living through them, you become stronger. I see the hand of God in that.