Home to Harmony Quotes

“I can only make one person happy each day.

Today is not your day.

Tomorrow doesn't look good, either.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“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

“...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.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“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.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

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

“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

“If you can go home to someone who loves you, if your children are proud of you, if you can keep your integrity, you’ve hit the jackpot. You don’t need the state to call your number. It’s already been called.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“There’s danger in thinking joy is a matter of location. If we can’t find joy where we are, we probably won’t find it anywhere.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“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

“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.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Sometimes what we think we need isn't what we need at all, and what gets thrown in for good measure is that which fills our hearts.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“When we’re young, we think we know all there is to know. Then we grow older, and the more we learn, the more we realize how little we actually know. It takes a wise man to realize just how much he doesn’t know.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“When we’re young, we think we know all there is to know. Then we grow older, and the more we learn, the more we realize how little we actually know.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Sometimes what we think we need isn’t what we need at all, and what gets thrown in for good measure is that which fills our hearts.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Sometimes we come to gratitude too late. It’s only after blessing has passed on that we realize what we had.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“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, Home to Harmony

“Dr. Neely’s theory is that if you’re not willing to get poked with a needle, then you’re probably not sick enough to see a doctor.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“For a minister, that was pretty inconsiderate of him to go and get killed during Lent,” she said.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Both his parents had died of heart problems, which he feared would happen to him, so he’d begun to jog and was hit by a truck.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“I had met my wife in college. Her name was Barbara, and she was the first woman besides my mother to show the faintest interest in me. It took six years to persuade her to marry me.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“They said I lacked ambition, which wasn’t true. They confused contentment for stagnation, a common mistake.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“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.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“A New World. A world where God has set up housekeeping, where God will live right with us, and we with Him. He’ll wipe the tears from our eyes, and death will die. No more crying, no more sorrow, no more pain, no more.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Thus are the changes wrought in a man’s life—that courage is treasured more than comfort and, in that choice, victory is gained.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“This is how foreign grace was to her, that when she heard it she mistook it for heresy. There are some people, I am sorry to say, who wouldn’t recognize grace if it stood at their door wearing a name tag.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“It troubled me that folks would drive three hundred miles to see Christ in a quilt, but wouldn’t walk next door to see Him in their neighbor.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“To look at Miriam and Ellis, you wouldn’t think there was anything special about them. But love has a way of making ordinary people seem remarkable, and in that sense, Miriam and Ellis are the most fascinating people I know.”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony

“Instead, we sit in a booth at the Coffee Cup and drink fresh coffee from mugs that have our names printed on the bottom and that hang on the wall next to the front door when we’re not there. We walk in, the bell over the door tinkles, Vinny greets us by name, and we pluck our mugs from the rack and head to our booth”
― Philip Gulley, Home to Harmony