No More Faking Fine Quotes

“If we don’t allow painful emotions to surface, then we are setting expectations for ourselves that even God cannot meet. Nobody laments more than God Himself. And we are called to be like Him.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“When we fake fine, we fake our way out of authentic relationship with God, others, and ourselves.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Pretending we are strong or being strong out of woundedness actually accomplishes very little for us in the end—and very little for God. It prevents us from being known, fears and all, and being radically accepted. There is no “fake it till you make it” in Scripture.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“What’s more, lament is a pathway. Honest expression to God makes way for God to come and work His real healing. Lament is a channel for powerful transformation. It is exactly the kind of song we need for hope and healing. For so much of my life, I thought sucking it up and faking away the pain showed true strength. But real strength is identifying a wound and asking God to enter it.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“(Ecclesiastes 1:2). The good news is these are seasons—we aren’t meant to stay in our laments forever. We are loved by a God who is making all things new.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Will you meet with me? Save me, for the waters have come up to my neck (Psalm 69:1). Hear my cry for help (Psalm 5:2).”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“A lament saves us from staying stuck in grief and rescues us from a faith based on falsehoods.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Sometimes we are fooled into thinking we can control our circumstances, and yet pursuing control actually prohibits God from meeting us just where we are. We have so much less control than we think we do. My counselor finally had to say to me, “Esther, you are trying to control things to keep Satan away, but you are actually keeping God out.” Our desire to control will keep us from being real before God.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“If we deny suffering as a form of blessing, then we are denying the sufferings of Christ that blessed us and brought about our freedom.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Think for a moment of the things you try hardest to conceal. For me, it was my family history—my experience of being unwanted, abused, abandoned, not chosen. Your laments are never wasted. As we lament and receive comfort within safe community, we cannot help but extend to others the comfort we have received. Paul writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3–4, emphasis mine). There is not a single trial you will face that God—the Father of compassion, the God of all comfort—does not want to comfort you in. No matter your heartache, no matter your struggle or sin, the Father’s nature and desperate desire is to comfort you! This verse holds such a beautiful promise! And it doesn’t stop there. God offers you comfort in all your troubles so you can offer that same comfort to others in any of their troubles. I take this to mean that, regardless of our experience with suffering, we are always qualified to love and comfort others in whatever struggle they are facing. “The Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” equips us to minister to one another, regardless of our experience of the same sufferings. This means you don’t have to have lost a child to offer comfort to a grieving parent. You don’t have to have struggled with infertility to offer comfort to another family. I didn’t need to have experienced the loss of a spouse to offer comfort, care, and concern to my friend Bemni. You are qualified to comfort because God has comforted you Himself. It is He who works through us.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“But the next words in Genesis 39 deliver quite a plot twist: “But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden” (verses 20–21). Hold on. I had to read these words”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Joseph was falsely accused and then sent to prison for several years. David was anointed king, but waited over a decade to step into that role. The Israelites were in slavery for forty years.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Joseph’s life—he was abandoned. I could see my life through David’s life—he ran from an unstable man too. Jonah was so angry he wanted to die (Jonah 4:9), and Job and Jeremiah lamented even being born (Job 3:1; Jeremiah 20:14).”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Every time God asks a question in Scripture, He already knows the answer. But isn’t it interesting what our answers reveal about our hearts? Cain made the foolish mistake of thinking he could conceal his sin from God. “‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” (Genesis 4:9).”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. ECCLESIASTES 7:3 NLT”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Unprocessed laments keep our hearts in chains. It keeps us stuck in the cycle of the wrong if/then statements we were holding on to to begin with. God wants to help our hearts get unshackled from these chains.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“We don’t want to bother anyone with our struggles. Or we compare our brokenness to that of others by telling ourselves our experiences “weren’t that bad.” Sometimes we even joke about our difficulties, subconsciously telling ourselves that if we can just turn our pain into a punch line, we might have a fighting chance.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“We say these things because, somewhere along the way, we lost the biblical language of lament. We have not discovered the beauty in sorrow, so we try to get out of pain as quickly as possible—and we expect others to do so as well. But life will let all of us down, and we need a way to talk about it—a way we have lost along the way.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending

“Adam and Eve were banished from the garden, the only home they’d ever known. The Israelites wandered the wilderness for forty years before they entered the Promised Land. The prophets ripped their clothing, grieved in the streets, and warned God’s people to repent and return. Jesus died the most gruesome death the Romans could come up with. And the early church faced persecution of all kinds.”
― Esther Fleece, No More Faking Fine: Ending the Pretending