receive mercy and find grace

i received this from a precious friend today in response to a few shared prayer requests:

"you are loved very much...unconditionally...no matter what you think or do...it's been done, God has forgiven you and given you a new life in Him."

thank you for this, dear friend.  though this was not necessarily linked to my prayer requests, i sincerely needed this more than anything.

"let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." {hebrews 4:16}

quote by quote

obviously, i need to get back on track with this blog.  i have not been doing well with it, by any means.  i thought i would catch up to may just by sharing some of the quotes from the books that i have read thus far.  after this, i will hopefully be better about keeping up with life. 

"i had my whole life planned.  i knew exactly where it was taking me." {water for elephants, sara gruen}

"keeping up the appearance of having all your marbles i hard work, but important." {water for elephants, sara gruen}

"people always say that, when you love someone, nothing in the world matters.  but that's not true, is it?  you know, and i know, that when you love someone, everything in the world matters a little bit more." {handle with care, jodi picoult}

"families were never what you wanted them to be.  we all wanted what we couldn't have:  the perfect child, the doting husband, the mother who wouldn't let go.  we live in our grown-up dollhouses completely unaware that, at any moment, a hand might come in and change around everything we'd become accustomed to." {handle with care, jodi picoult}

"i shouldn't have eavesdropped, but sometimes, that's the only way to find out the truth." {handle with care, jodi picoult}

"maybe you expected marriage to be perfect - i guess that's where you and i are different.  see, i thought it would be all about making mistakes, but doing it with someone who's there to remind you what you learned along the way." {handle with care, jodi picoult}

"the first time you share tea with a balit, you are a stranger.  the second time you take tea, you are an honored guest.  the third time you share a cup of tea, you become family." {three cups of tea, greg mortenson}

"what we are trying to do may be just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."  {three cups of tea, greg mortenson}

"it is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates.  hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility." {the scarlet letter, nathaniel hawthorne}

"women made the best beekeepers, 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting." {the secret life of bees, sue monk kidd}

"'you know, somethings don't matter that much, lily.  like the color of a house.  how big is that in the overall scheme of life?  but lifting a person's heart--now that matters.  the whole problem with people is-'...'the problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it.'" {the secret life of bees, sue monk kidd}

"'there's a fullness of time for things, lily.  you have to know when to prod and when to be quiet, when to let things take their course.'" {the secret life of bees, sue monk kidd}