Laura > Laura's Quotes

“anxiety is a call inwards—a sign that I have left myself. A warning signal, to stop my action and write myself into being….My anchor to my soul and my God is in this pen.”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“I feel that to keep my sanity—my spiritual sanity—I must simply walk away from the demands and duties and create. Work at my own stuff. I am willing enough to return after a few hours to the responsible and the routine—but if I cannot pray and run and read and write I cannot live.”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“Dear God, I want to be a writer to your glory—I want to shape sentences and words out of my soul, not just my mind….Fresh, alive, prayerful sentences.”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“They visited a small parish close to their apartment (always his recommended way to find a church: whatever was in your neighborhood). 50 or 60 people at most, spare surroundings—simple. That’s all I want in worship: a place and time to attend to God, and no pastor or priest getting in the way.”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“Eugene saw that God-part of people. He saw that and defined me in that way—the other stuff didn’t define me. That was astounding.”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“I am not a truly card-carrying evangelical—there is a sense in which I am most comfortable as an “outsider evangelical” within the halls of tradition. Regent is too comfortable for me—and there is no sense of larger context: the reality of church complexity. Evangelicalism is too combative and clear-cut for me.”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“I would want to tell pastors to quit being so busy and learn quiet, to quit talking so much and learn silence, to quit treating the congregation as customers and treat them with dignity as souls-in-formation.”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“Writing is an expression of living, not knowing: of praying, not knowing.”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“He had always known how to pick children up, how to comfort them without embarrassment, and in return the children found a solace in his skin, his hair. He made them hold their own weight by letting them cling to him.”
― Ann Patchett, Run

“It was a sign of maturity that he could recognize a peaceful moment and decide to let it stand.”
― Ann Patchett, Run

“If something like “vision” crept in, I got rid of it as fast as I could. The church I wanted or dreamt of or had a vision for got in the way of the church I had, the church God gave me. No, I’m afraid that I don’t have much truck with the “vision statements” that seem to fuel the ambition of pastors these days.”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“[The schismatics] cancel out any truth that they are contending for by the hate they vomit in the sanctuary”
― Winn Collier, A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message

“The grace of Jesus allows us to look honestly at our lives, not lock our stories into a place of shame. When I open wide my hands to the truth of my life and allow grace and forgiveness to seep into the pain of my story, I can lift my face, walk in grace and forgiveness, and not dwell on the bitter moments that hurt so desperately.”
― Kara Tippetts, The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

“It took me years to find contentment in the mundane momentum of loving in motherhood.”
― Kara Tippetts, The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

“I have met many who have taken that diagnosis and slipped deeply into anger. I understand. It’s an easy place to go. But I cannot go there. I have taken a path of seeking grace. It sounds trite putting those words on paper. Perhaps it is. But if God has called me to this hard story, His promise is one of sufficient grace. Sufficient for me, sufficient for my guy, sufficient for my littles.”
― Kara Tippetts, The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard