J-Live Quotes

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.

Bursts of gold on lavender melting into saffron. It's the time of day when the sky looks like it has been spray-painted by a graffiti artist.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.

Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.

...the secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is.

If there is a single definition of healing it is to enter with mercy and awareness those pains, mental and physical, from which we have withdrawn in judgment and dismay. (48)

Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.

Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.

If I could be half the person my dog is, I'd be twice the human I am.

Moral crusaders with zeal but no ethical understanding are likely to give us solutions that are worse than the problems.

There's no point having wishes if you don't at least try to do them

You want to tell a story? Grow a heart. Grow two. Now, with the second heart, smash the first one into bits.

wherever you find the greatest good, you will find the greatest evil, because evil loves paradise as much as good.

The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time.

If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.

A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ.

Hubris calls for nemesis, and in one form or another it's going to get it, not as a punishment from outside but as the completion of a pattern already started.

Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.

As my son Frankie put it, Humanism has changed the Twenty-third Psalm: They began - I am my shepherd. Then - Sheep are my shepherd. Then - Everything is my shepherd. Finally - Nothing is my shepherd.

Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

In human character, simplicity doesn't exist except among simpletons.

Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.

Holiness, as taught in the Scriptures, is not based upon knowledge on our part. Rather, it is based upon the resurrected Christ in-dwelling us and changing us into His likeness.

Consider the source...Don't be a fool by listening to a fool.

Don't forget, a person's greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.

Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen everyday.

Numb the dark and you numb the light.

Even to me the issue of "stay small, sweet, quiet, and modest" sounds like an outdated problem, but the truth is that women still run into those demands whenever we find and use our voices.

Life is now in session. Are you present?

Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant—a seed—this plants the giant miracle.

Simply touching a difficult memory with some slight willingness to heal begins to soften the holding and tension around it. (74)

If you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then someday you can do the things you want do when you want to do them.

Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.

Letting ourselves be forgiven is one of the most difficult healings we will undertake. And one of the most fruitful. (79)

What we know matters but who we are matters more.

Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.

That which is impermanent attracts compassion. That which is not provides wisdom. (116)

I was headed for an entire life spent alone, pitying myself for not being more, ignoring all those people who actually ask me to be more, because they see it in me.

Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.

Quoting son, Noah Levine: Once you see what the heart really needs, it doesn’t matter if you’re going to live or die, the work is always the same. (25)

Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.

I honestly believe that people of my generation despise authenticity, mostly because they're all so envious of it.

Death is perfectly safe. (55)

I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.

Thanksgiving-giving thanks in everything-prepares the way that God might show us His fullest salvation in Christ.

[D]etachment means letting go and nonattachment means simply letting be. (95)

Desire is suffering. A simple equation, and a nice catchphrase. But flipped around, it is more troubling: suffering is desire.

Satan prowls but he’s a lion on a leash

Sometimes you don’t know when you’re taking the first step through a door until you’re already inside.