Seeing as there are almost endless amounts of great quotes in the world, it’s hard to choose one as a favorite.
There is only one quote, however, which made it to my fridge door and remained there most of the year. It even survived our move, and found it’s way to our new fridge door:
That quote kinda sums up what I learned this last year. I’ve shared about how last spring, I realized I was not very happy with my life, with no good reason, and decided to do something about it.
This last year has been about reading fantastic books to gain new wisdom, and developing new habits and ways of thinking. It’s been about praying and memorizing Scripture, and working at this thing until I can honestly say I feel completely different about my life today.
I still mess up, and have a lot of work left to do, but life is different, and I am so thankful.
So what does this quote have to do with it? Well, on that spring day last year, I realized I was waiting for my life to change. I was waiting for annoying dilemmas to disappear, and dreams to fulfill themselves in my life. I had somehow slipped into thinking that my emotions were at the mercy of my circumstances.
In my head, I knew this was not the right way to live, but I got mixed up somewhere along the way.
I had to make a choice. I had to decide what to do when hard things happened in my life. I needed to know, right down to the bottom of my heart, that I believed God was in control, and joy and peace were possible in the midst of any circumstances.
When I saw this quote in a magazine, it hit me in exactly the right spot. It sums up much of my journey – I will choose for today what kind of life I’m going to live. Today I start to change bad habits. For today, I cannot control what issues will come into my life, but I can control how I react to them.
And that is what makes all the difference.
I want to write my story on purpose. I don’t want to sit around waiting for my life to happen. I would like to make good things happen, and fully embrace the everyday blessings I might have overlooked before.
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Any favorite quotes you want to share? Or how about ways in which you are choosing to write your own story today? Please share! Because I’d love to hear about it, and…..because you might win a prize! (Get the details here.)
Ordinary Days 
Oh that quote is SO good!! I love it!
There are so many great quotes out there, hard to choose a favorite for myself. I have always liked the “Some days you’re the bug, some days the windshield” one. 🙂
That is a great quote. Reminds me how I also need to choose my attitude in a day and not just allow my emotions to take the reigns. Seems when I do that my emotions write the story and I leave myself completely out of the decision! Haha! One of my favorite quotes is from a book called “Something Beautiful for God” by Malcolm Muggeridge. It’s a living biography of sorts on Mother Theresa. One of the quotes in the book is from Mother Theresa and reads…”Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of himself. Ask and seek, and your heart will grow big enough to receive him as your own.” I love this idea of using prayer to enlarge our hearts and not to constantly change circumstances. I know so well from all sorts of circumstances in life that changing them is not always or perhaps even usually possible. It’s not that we can’t or shouldn’t ask for things to change and pray with faith, but this premise that if we use prayer to enlarge our hearts, it is then our hearts that will grow to contain God…what a beautiful thought. It’s a quote that I’ve been meaning to put on my fridge. I do believe I will get that done, now. Purposeful living. Yes, that’s hard. But what a wonderful thing to strive for and maybe even attain more fully one day. Thanks for the thoughts, Kendra. As always, so good to read your words.
Oh, I love that! I would never have thought to pray for an enlarged heart, but it sounds like a fantastic idea!
I just read a quote that struck a chord with me – it even kind of fits here! “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
― Mary Oliver
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