Church of the Small Things Quotes

“His love wrote the first chapters of my life and is the reason I never had to wonder if I was adored.”
― Melanie Shankle, Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces That Make Up a Life

“...true success and prosperity comes when you are right where God wants you to be, doing what He wants you to do.”
― Melanie Shankle, Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces That Make Up a Life

“I’ve always loved this verse: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). Notice how clear it is that we’re not the ones who are supposed to hold everything together? God is holding it all. He is before it all. He uses the sinners and the weak and the ordinary things that this world views as broken and hopeless. But in him all those things come together and enable us to do things we never dreamed possible.”
― Melanie Shankle, Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces That Make Up a Life

“But true success and prosperity comes when you are right where God wants you to be, doing what he has called you to do.”
― Melanie Shankle, Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces That Make Up a Life

“I would share that perhaps the thing I’ve learned the most over the last several years is that we all have a tendency to compare our lives to others’ and think everyone is living a better story than we are.”
― Melanie Shankle, Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces That Make Up a Life

“What if we teach our kids that their true identity and security is found in the fact that they “are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for [them] to do” (Ephesians 2:10)? Each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made, and God has put us in our families, schools, communities, and the world in this time and in this generation for a very specific and unique reason. And instead of finding power or making ourselves feel better by making someone else feel small and insignificant, we will never feel more empowered or confident than when we run our own race to discover the purpose for which God created us.”
― Melanie Shankle, Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces That Make Up a Life

“Let’s live in a way that teaches our children the importance of loving our neighbors and that peers aren’t our competition. When we begin to see our own value, we realize that no one else’s successes or accomplishments diminish our own but rather we see that God has a unique path for each of us. Sometimes a closed door is the very thing that leads us to our calling. We can walk our road without worrying if someone else’s road looks better. The comparison trap is an endless vortex of nothingness that serves only to make us feel insecure and discontented because we are measuring our insides against someone else’s outside.”
― Melanie Shankle, Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces That Make Up a Life

“What if we lived as though we truly believed God has given us a life without walls, that he has plans for us that go beyond anything we can measure or imagine and promises to be the glory in our midst? I believe God wants to make our city—our lives—so big that walls can’t contain it. His idea of big is so different from ours. A God who promises us that not even a sparrow falls to the ground without him knowing is a God who values even the smallest things. He wants us to have peace and contentment that won’t require us to put up walls of protection and spend our lives afraid of being vulnerable and real as we stop compulsively trying to measure the width and depth of our lives. He will be our protection. He will be the wall of fire all around. He will be the glory in our midst and whisper to us that our lives, no matter how small they may seem to us, are enough because he is enough.”
― Melanie Shankle, Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces That Make Up a Life