21 Quotes by Sarah Christmyer

In the end, beauty isn’t measured by physical features but by our likeness to the One in whose image we’re created. So do we measure ourselves against others, then manipulate our beauty to form our own image? Or do we see ourselves as God sees us and allow him to mold us into his likeness? God wants to make us ‘good’ in the Genesis 1 sense of the word. Not a goody-two-shoes, afraid-to-do-anything-wrong sort of good. A beautiful, magnificent good that’s terrible in its splendor.

There’s a reason Psalm 51 is the best known of the Penitential Psalms and one of the best-loved psalms of all. It speaks to the deep pain we feel inside us when we sin, and then it shows us the mercy of God. His is the love of a Father who sees his child’s stricken face – washes the tears away – and then reaches inside to create in us “a clean heart;” to breathe “a new and right spirit” within us.

It’s a paradox of the spiritual life that when we give out of our emptiness, God will fill us.