not a year in review post

I really wasn’t going to do a “year in review” blog, but the urge struck.  So here, in chronological order of enlightenment, are some things I learned this year, or tried to learn, or was supposed to learn, or am trying to learn.  They’re quotes, make of them what you will.  For the first time, I’m leaving you bez commentary…  but you’re welcome and encouraged to leave some of your own…  

"Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up if they succeed in loving the distance between them, which makes it possible for each to see the other against a wide sky." Rainer Maria Rilke

I Corinthians 13: 1, 4-7   - If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal…  Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious.  Love does not brag, it is not puffed up.  It is not rude, it is not self-serving, it is not easily angered or resentful.  It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  

"Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.  Rainer Maria Rilke

Regardless of what happens, don't ever forget that...you're beautiful, no matter what...you're divine, no matter what...and you're perfectly loved, no matter what. You are always held, like a baby, by the Lover of all. It's okay to just relax into that sometimes and let go of everything else outside of you.  Vassi – Comment on a previous post

There are no promises in life.  I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know that the keeper of the world is also the keeper of my destiny and the safety of his plans may include seasons of love, pain, beauty, and loneliness.  But my season is no more than a line in the story of my life, important and possibly altering all lines that follow, but not that large.  I must remind my soul that it is only one line, and the story…  the story has a great ending…    From Monday, October 10, 2005 “Still Avoiding Work” Post

She looked at him bleakly. “Your kind of love can’t feel good.”
“Does your kind feel any better?”… “Right now love doesn’t have an awful lot to do with feelings,” he said grimly.  “Don’t misunderstand.  I’m as human asa the next man.  I feel all right.  I feel plenty right now, a lot I wish I didn’t.”  He shook his head, his face strained with hurt and anger.  “I felt like killing you when I walked in that room, but I didn’t.  I feel like beating sense into you right now, but I won’t.”… “And no matter how much it hurts, and no matter how much I feel like hurting you back for what you’ve done, I’m not going to.”  
From Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers  

Genesis 50: 20- As for you, you meant to harm me, but God intended it for a good purpose, so he could preserve the lives of many people, as you can see this day.

Matthew 5:23-24 So then, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.  First go and be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your gift.