Savor Quotes

“You have stories worth telling, memories worth remembering, dreams worth working toward, a body worth feeding, a soul worth tending, and beyond that, the God of the universe dwells within you, the true culmination of super and natural.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“Life is a collection of a million tiny little moments and choices, like a handful of luminous pearls. Strung together, lined up through the days and the years, they make a life. It takes so much time, and so much work, and those beads and moments are so small, and so much less fabulous and dramatic than the movies. The Heisman Trophy winner knows this. He knows that his big moment was not when they gave him the trophy. It was the thousand times he went to practice instead of going back to bed. It was the miles run on rainy days, the healthy meals when a burger sounded like heaven. That big moment represented and rested on a foundation of moments that had come before it.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“It’s rebellious, in a way, to choose joy, to dance, to love your life. It’s much easier and much more common to be miserable. We could just live our normal, day-to-day lives, saving all the good living up for someday, but I think it’s our job to live each day like it’s a special occasion, because we’ve been given a gift.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“There’s nothing small or inconsequential about our stories. There is, in fact, nothing bigger. And when we tell the truth about our lives—the broken parts, the secret parts, the beautiful parts—then the gospel comes to life, an actual story about redemption, instead of abstraction and theory and things you learn in Sunday school.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“Each of us has been created by a holy God with love, on purpose and for a purpose. But so many of us feel afraid or unprepared. This is the secret, though: No one is prepared enough. No one is perfectly ready.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“Nothing good comes easily. You have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought you needed. You have to get over yourself, beyond your past, out from under the weight of your future. The good stuff never comes when things are easy. It comes just when you think it never will.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“There are things that happen to us that give us two options. Either way, we will never be the same, and we shouldn’t. These things can either strip us down to the bone and allow us to become strong and honest, or they can be the reasons we use to behave poorly indefinitely, the justification for all manner of broken relationships and broken ideals. It could be the thing that allows everything else to turn, the lock of our lives to finally spring open and allow our pent-up selves to blossom. Or it can be the reason we use to justify our anger and the sharp tones in our voices for the rest of our lives.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“WE LIVE out the love of God when we care for those he brings into our lives. Have you ever been surprised by who you came to love, because they became yours in some way?”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“Marriage isn’t a business, co-owned and managed. It’s a love story. The most important things we can give our marriage are time and romance, kissing and laughing. Laundry can wait, but a love story needs to be written a little bit every day. WHEN”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“You don’t know what the story is about when you’re in the middle of it. All you can do is keep walking. At the beginning, you have buoyancy and a little arrogance. The journey looks beautiful and bright, and you are filled with resolve and silver strength, sure that you will face it with optimism and chutzpah. And the end is beautiful. You are wiser, better, deeper. The end is revelation, resolution, a soft place to land. But, oh, the middle. The middle is fog, exhaustion, loneliness, the daily battle against despair and the nagging fear that tomorrow will be just like today, only you’ll be wearier and less able to defend yourself against it. All you can ask for, in the middle, are sweet moments of reprieve in the company of people you love. For a few hours, you’ll feel protected by the goodness of friendship and life around the table, and that’s the best thing I can imagine.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“I needed a piece of a story, something real and full of life and blood and breath and heartache, something that someone had lived through, a piece of wisdom earned the hard way. That’s why telling our stories is so important.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“When you do what you love with people who love the same thing, something is born into your midst and begins to connect you. When you walk with someone, listen to their story, carry their burden, play with their kids, that’s community. When you find yourself learning from them and inviting them into the family places in your life, that’s community, and wherever you find it, it’s always a gift.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“Let’s be courageous in these days. Let’s choose love and rest and grace. Let’s use our minutes and hours to create memories with the people we love instead of dragging them on one more errand or shushing them while we accomplish one more seemingly necessary thing.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“OPPORTUNITIES TO build friendship and community don’t always come at the most convenient times, but we have to grab them when we get the chance.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“part of becoming yourself, in a deeply spiritual way, is finding the words to tell the truth about what it is you really love.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“The general world population will survive without one more stage production and one more gallery showing. This is the thing, though: you might not. We create because we were made to create, having been made in the image of God, whose first role was Creator.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“For twenty years, I have waited to become the thin version of myself, because that’s when life will really begin. My life is passing, day by day, and I am waiting for it to start. I don’t want to wait anymore.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“I forget so easily that there’s a bigger picture. I’m easily seduced by the bustle of the day—lunch and laundry, deadlines and dinnertime. I forget that it’s all held together by a holy, loving God, and that we get to be his partners in restoration and healing. I forget that there’s more than I see, more than I can dream.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“TRAVEL BREATHES new life into our sense of what is possible, and allows us to see our lives from a new perspective. When was the last time a new location opened up something new in you?”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“you just have to take one step, and that when you do, the next one will appear.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“IT’S EASY to long for nothing but good news and carefree days, but a full life includes the broken and dark and difficult parts, too. Thank God for walking with you in the seasons of heartbreak.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“When I’ve regretting saying something on the internet, it’s never been about love. I’ve never regretting loving or encouraging or celebrating something. I have often regretted slamming or dismissing or criticizing something, because when I do that online, it’s outside of relationship, outside of shared understanding, outside of context. I”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the calluses on our hands.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“My impulse is always toward work, pushing, guilt, rushing. But what restores me, what allows me to interact well with my family, what allows me to get good writing done, is almost always the opposite. And I’m finding that when I practice things like rest, grace, peace, prayer, self-care and slowness, the work gets done just the same. Well, just the same except less crying and less apologizing to my family. I’ll take it.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“TAKE A minute to list the top five or six things you feel called and committed to in this season of life. Seeing them written on paper, in order, can help us orient ourselves and make decisions that spring from those priorities.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“When you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it as a tragedy, but you choose to call it an epic, that’s when you start to learn what celebration is.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“The discipline of celebration is changing my life, and I invite you into the same practice. Come tap dance with me on the fresh graves of apathy and cynicism, the creeping belief that this is all there is, and that God is no match for the wreckage of the world we live in.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“I don't want to get to the end and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing loud in the car and wear pink shoes. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes. I want my every day to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are

“I want to be the kind of person who makes peace with her body. I want to live with peace and confidence, without deprivation and shame. I don't want to live by rules and regulations, but I also don't want to be ruled by my appetites.”
― Shauna Niequist, Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are