It's Not Supposed to Be This Way Quotes

“We dare to have affection for a painting not because of our tolerance of it but because of our delight in the way it carries its imperfections.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“God's promises aren't just for certain people at a certain low point. His hope extends into any and every size pit or pothole.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“No human is strong enough to withstand seeing too much of God's plan in advance. It must be revealed daily. And we must be led to it and through it slowly.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“There isn't any timing that seems like the right timing to be shattered into dust. There isn't any plan God could present where I would willingly agree to be broken into unglueable pieces. I just wouldn't And what a tragedy that would be. My controlling things would prevent the dust required for God to make the new He desperately desires for me.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“If our souls never ached with disappointments and disillusionments, we'd never fully admit and submit to our need for God. If we weren't ever shattered we'd never know the glorious touch of the Potter making something glorious out of dust, out of us.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“The piercing angst of disappointment in everything on this side of eternity creates a discontent with this world and pushes us to long for God Himself”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“But being disappointed by the fact that God doesn’t seem to be showing up during times of my greatest need? That wrecks my soul.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“Though we can’t predict or control or demand the outcome of our circumstances, we can know with great certainty we will be okay. Better than okay. Better than normal. We will be victorious because Jesus is victorious (1 Corinthians 15:57). And victorious people were never meant to settle for normal.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would. We question God when it doesn’t.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“having a higher perspective in our present realities.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“Genesis 2—3 Jeremiah 18:6 John 9:5–6 2 Corinthians 5:1–5 Revelation 21:5”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“I ride this struggle bus. But I’m never comfortable with the fact that I can’t grab the wheel and drive it back to Normal.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“if we weren’t ever disappointed, we’d settle for the shallow pleasures of this world rather than addressing the spiritual desperation of our souls. We don’t think about fixing things until we realize they are broken. And even then we don’t call in the experts until we surrender to the realization we cannot fix things on our own. If our souls never ached with disappointments and disillusionments, we’d never fully admit and submit to our need for God. If we weren’t ever shattered we’d never know the glorious touch of the Potter making something glorious out of dust, out of us.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“So the human heart was created in the context of the perfection of the garden of Eden. But we don’t live there now. This is why our instincts keep firing off the lie that perfection is possible. We have pictures of perfection etched into the very DNA of our souls.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“satisfied by daily doses of truth, otherwise we will be prone to snack on deception.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“Make no mistake: being lulled into a false sense of security is worse than going through the process of suffering.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“If so, I guarantee when the enemy sees us he shakes with fear. He isn’t scared of the judgmental soul shellacked with a fake sense of perfection. But the compassionate soul who has hurt deeply and come out loving? Yes, she is one of the superstars of God’s grand story, and the one you want near you in the battles of life.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“Even the best painters will get something off scale, out of alignment, a shade too dark, or a hair too thick. It will be flawed. And that’s where we must make a crucial decision: What will we do with disappointment? Will we see it as an unraveling of the precision we long for? A mockery of perfection? An unbecoming? Another disappointment to add to all the other disappointments we constantly feel? Or, will we see the human behind the ink? The heart that dared to hold the brush dripping with color. Remember that she was the courageous one. That she was the one who showed up. Took the risk. Braved the secret disappointments of others. And lived. And made her mark.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“When there is an undoing of your life, there is an unknowing of every next millisecond. Every next breath. The peaceful predictability of what you thought would be your life is suddenly replaced by a very unexpected darkness and silence you aren’t used to.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“Fear isn’t something you can sweep up into a pile and discard. It isn’t physical. It hovers and haunts us in the spiritual realm. It attacks us in the unseen.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“All I have to do is stand at the gravesite of my sister who died way too young and in way too much pain to be reminded that none of this is easy or tidy. Some things won’t be fixed on this side of eternity; they just have to be walked through.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“We don’t have to know the plan to trust there is a plan. We don’t have to feel good to trust there is good coming. We don’t have to see evidence of changes to trust that it won’t always be this hard.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“And let’s be honest, if we weren’t ever disappointed, we’d settle for the shallow pleasures of this world rather than addressing the spiritual desperation of our souls.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“All I have to do is stand at the gravesite of my sister who died way too young and in way too much pain to be reminded that none of this is easy or tidy. Some things won't be fixed on this side of eternity; they just have to be walked through. But when my brain begs me to doubt God-as it most certainly does-I find relief for my unbelief by laying down my human assessments and assumptions. I turn from the tree of knowledge and fix my gaze on the tree of life. I let my soul be cradled by God's divine assurance.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“If I want His promises, I have to trust His process. I have to trust that first comes the dust, and then comes the making of something even better with us. God isn’t ever going to forsake you, but He will go to great lengths to remake you. What if disappointment is really the exact appointment your soul needs to radically encounter God?”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“I let my soul be cradled by God’s divine assurance. His Son. Who completely understands. And who will walk me through every step of this if I keep my focus on Him. That’s how I survive the 86,400 seconds called today.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“Humans are very attached to outcomes. We say we trust God but behind the scenes we work our fingers to the bone and our emotions into a tangled fray trying to control our outcomes. We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would. We question God when it doesn’t. And walk away from Him when we have a sinking suspicion that God is the one who set fire to the hope that was holding us together. Even the most grounded people can feel hijacked by the winds of unpredictable change. We feel weighed down by grief while at the same time unable to get our bearings as the weightless ashes of all we thought would be fly away.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“When people see us, do they see the compassion of their Creator? If so, I guarantee when the enemy sees us he shakes with fear. He isn’t scared of the judgmental soul shellacked with a fake sense of perfection. But the compassionate soul who has hurt deeply and come out loving? Yes, she is one of the superstars of God’s grand story, and the one you want near you in the battles of life.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“There is purpose to this process. Yes, the process will be so messy, so full of slime and mud and mire and cries for help that you can’t help but wonder whether they are being heard or not. They are. As I said before, God isn’t far off. He’s just far more interested in your being prepared than in your being comfortable.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“Just because I want something, doesn't mean it's God's best for me. Just because I can do something, doesn't mean I should do it...I have the right to do anything, but not everything is constructive.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered