Growth comes from God, to those with surrendered, yielded hearts.

A broken person understands she needs rescue, and she depends on God to resurrect and deliver. And she also understands that even if God chooses not to deliver, His ways are higher and more amazing then what we can fathom.

When the world careens out of control, we can rest in the fact that God spun this world with a simple word. Matter from emptiness. Beauty from void. Community from chaos.

Sometimes we control our family members because we idolize and idealize our perfect plan over the journey that God has laid out for them. (p. 56)

It’s an act of our will to choose to see people simply as wildly loved by God, to assume their beauty before guessing their depravity.

We may not understand the pathways God lays out before us. We may not even like walking the journey. But even in failure, we can trust that He’ll do more than we expect.

We enslave in the manner we talk to ourselves. But the truth is, God already set us free. He secured our release. To constantly hurt ourselves, resting in our inadequacy, is to call Him a LIAR.

It’s never easy letting go. But if we don’t learn the art of relinquishment, we’ll never move forward to embrace the new relationships God has for us.

To abandon all is to take our hearts, place them before the One who created them, and dare to believe He can live life powerfully through our surrendered lives.