Safe place

I haven't blogged for a while. Life happens; the route becomes circuitous, dangerous. One of my friends had a serious car accident, and I haven't felt like doing the journey with full energy myself while she lies in the hospital bed, suffering. Today, I'll go visit her mother and help her wait out a surgery.

School life has been going well. The students and I share deep thoughts and deep laughs. I'm truly blessed by them, and I know some of them might say the same back. :)

I have been reading snippets from books. Right now, in the process of handing over a book to a struggling former student's mother, I am reading Larry Crabb's The Safest Place on Earth. I want to capture some thought provoking quotes before the book leaves, maybe never to be seen. May it go with seeds full of potential growth.

Memorable quotes about confusion and disappointment (and hope!):

"Confusion isn't always a bad thing. If we're not confused about anything it's likely we're grasping the truth about nothing important" (4).

"Disappointment, too, is inevitable. More than that, it is good. Following Christ must take us through seasons of disappointment because Christianity remakes our dreams before it fulfills them. The process is excruciating. It can include divorce, bankruptcy, accidents, murder, near apostasy -- anything" (5).

"Disappointment, severe enough to be called death, is unavoidable in a true spiritual journey" (5).

"The upside of confusion is openness. Confused people listen better, not always, but more often than people whose minds are made up. Those folks listen only in order to critique, to see if someone else is on the right track, namely theirs. Confused people are more likely to combine kindness with whatever convictions emerge our of their confusion. And, because of their eagerness for meaningful dialogue with honest people, the convictions they develop tend to speak to the realities of life as it really is lived" (5).

"Disappointment has an upside as well. It inspires hope by making hope necessary" (6).

"Soul-crushing struggle supplies the energy that nudges us along in the process of shifting from token hope, the kind that generates pleasant feelings, to the real thing that anchors us through life's storms" (6).

That's all for now. I need to make a homemade card with enthralling pictures of Tom Hardy and Jesus on it for my friend. See below: