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The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard QUOTES

The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard QUOTES

1 " Jesus didn’t have to extend His love. He didn’t have to think of me when He went up on that cross. He didn’t have to rewrite my story from one of beauty to one of brokenness and create a whole new brand of beauty. He simply didn’t have to do it, but He did. He bought me. He bought me that day He died, and He showed His power when He overcame death and rose from the grave. He overcame my death in that moment. He overcame my fear of death in that unbelievable, beautiful moment, and the fruit of that death, that resurrection, and that stunning grace is peace. It is the hardest peace, because it is brutal. Horribly brutal and ugly, and we want to look away, but it is the greatest, greatest story that ever was. And it was, and it is. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

2 " Trusting God when the miracle does not come, when the urgent prayer gets no answer, when there is only darkness—this is the kind of faith God values perhaps most of all. This is the kind of faith that can be developed and displayed only in the midst of difficult circumstances. This is the kind of faith that cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken. Nancy Guthrie, Holding on to Hope "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

3 " It takes courage, humiliating courage, to step aside from your own sovereignty and imagined control and begin looking for the gift that comes unmerited. Yes, I’m talking about grace. Grace by my definition is the gift that comes unearned. In a world of unbelievably able bodies, where new diets are fashioned every day to keep my brand of story away, it is hard to realize you may be living in the middle of the best story ever told. That the story of breast cancer could possibly be a good story? A great story even? It would be easier to shake my fist at the test results and scream that this isn’t the right story, but to receive—humbly receive—the story no one would ever want, and know there is goodness in the midst of its horror, is not something I could ever do in my own strength. I simply cannot. That receiving comes from the One who received His own suffering for a much greater purpose than my own. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

4 " That though the hard might come and our hearts be broken, that brokenness isn’t bad. The tears are evidence of our love for one another. They did not stop that day, and they will not stop in the days to come. But tears are a gift, not something to withhold or bottle up—they are the essence of the best of life. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

5 " My hope is not in the absence of suffering and comfort returned. My hope is in the presence of the One who promises never to leave or forsake, the One who declares nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God” (Rom. 8:39). Nothing. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

6 " But we are not the Author of our story. We are the characters. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

7 " When I let go of having it perfect, I learned the joy of sharing life with the imperfect. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

8 " Grace is the sweet moment you never expect but turns up to get you through a day, an appointment, a reality you never, ever dreamed for yourself. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

9 " I want to move past my own unkindness with love, and know the reckless love of Jesus, and extend that love—that unconditional, always-believing-the-best, full-of-forgiveness-and-grace love. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

10 " Sometimes the hardest peace to find is the peace in saying good-bye and leaving the work of justice and reconciliation to Jesus. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

11 " But because I believe God’s plans for me are better than what I could plan for myself, rather than run away from the path he has set before me, I want to run toward it. I don’t want to try to change God’s mind—his thoughts are perfect. I want to think his thoughts. I don’t want to change God’s timing—his timing is perfect. I want the grace to accept his timing. I don’t want to change God’s plan—his plan is perfect. I want to embrace his plan and see how he is glorified through it. I want to submit. Nancy Guthrie, Holding on to Hope Receiving what is before me and fighting to walk in the path that is "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

12 " My season of weakness has taught me the joy of receiving, the strength of brokenness, and the importance of looking for God in each moment. Before cancer, I would have said "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

13 " Jason recently said in a sermon, “We want suffering to be like pregnancy—we have a season, and it’s over, and there is a tidy moral to the story.” I’ve come to sense that isn’t what faith is at all. What if there is never an end? What if the story never improves and the tests continue to break our hearts? Is God still good? "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

14 " hard is often the vehicle Jesus uses to meet us, point us to that peace, and teach us grace. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

15 " Affliction is a bruising of a blessing; but it is a blessing from the hand of God. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

16 " When you come to the end of yourself, that’s when something else can begin. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

17 " To be alive is to be broken. And to be broken is to stand in need of grace. Honesty keeps us in touch with our neediness and the truth that we are saved sinners. There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are. Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

18 " Cancer is a gift. There, I said it. I can say that cancer and suffering give the beautiful gift of perspective. It is the gift you never wanted, the gift wrapped in confusion and brokenness and heartbreak. It’s the gift that strips all your other ideas of living from you completely. The beautiful, ugly raising to the surface of the importance of each and every moment. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

19 " In the absence of grace, there is only right and wrong, black and white, and the endless unknowable gray of performance. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

20 " Anger makes us all stupid. "

― , The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard