These are things I can't change. Not one of them. Can't fix, can't heal, can't put the broken pieces back together. But what I can do is offer myself, wholehearted and present, to walk with the people I love through the fear and the mess. That's all any of us can do. That's what we're here for. Not the battle lines, keeping people in and out. Not the "pro" and "anti" stances, but the presence, the listening, the praying with and for on the days when it all falls apart, when life shatters in our hands.


Shauna Niequist

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES
Not," Swift said firmly, "for all the tea in China."
"That expression has never made sense to m...
LISA KLEYPAS
Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over.
RICHARD CARLSON
Now is the only time we have, and the only time we have any control over.
RICHARD CARLSON
I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, ...
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN
The battle is not physical, it is spiritual and your mind is the battleground. Keep your mind pure a...
JEANETTE CORON
We have tears in our eyes
As we wave our goodbyes,
We so loved being with you, we three. ROALD DAHL
It's all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you're properly trained.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Like all best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
My husband has quite simply been my strength and stay all these years, and I owe him a debt greater ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
It is easy enough to define what the Commonwealth is not. Indeed this is quite a popular pastime.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I have to be seen to be believed.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughou...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I hope that tomorrow we can all, wherever we are, join in expressing our grief at Diana's loss, ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I myself prefer my New Zealand eggs for breakfast.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I have behind me not only the splendid traditions and the annals of more than a thousand years but t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in th...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something e...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts an...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Grief is the price we pay for love.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
The upward course of a nation's history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
At its heart, engineering is about using science to find creative, practical solutions. It is a nobl...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Chr...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
For many, Christmas is also a time for coming together. But for others, service will come first.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
The lessons from the peace process are clear; whatever life throws at us, our individual responses w...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your s...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Therefore I am sure that this, my Coronation, is not the symbol of a power and a splendor that are g...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the man...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Madam President, speaking here in Dublin Castle it is impossible to ignore the weight of history, as...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
These wretched babies don't come until they are ready.
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
The events that I have attended to mark my Diamond Jubilee have been a humbling experience. It has t...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace ...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I have been aware all the time that my peoples, spread far and wide throughout every continent and o...
QUEEN ELIZABETH II
I don't know if I have a favorite color.
KATE MIDDLETON
It's very special having a new little girl.
KATE MIDDLETON
We'll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want...
PRINCE WILLIAM
Family is the most important thing in the world.
PRINCESS DIANA
You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I ...
CATHERINE THE GREAT
With the right help, children have a good chance of overcoming their issues while they are still you...
KATE MIDDLETON
As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
KING SOLOMON
I don't mind a big fascinator. I think there is more scope for artwork in a fascinator rather th...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I was always told from the hat-makers that you should have your hair up because it shows the hat mor...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I don't think I'll still be riding at 40. There are a couple of people who are still riding ...
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dad's not a big talker.
ZARA PHILLIPS
My dad can be pretty critical sometimes.
ZARA PHILLIPS
I'd love to have kids, but not at the moment.
ZARA PHILLIPS
You cannot make horses 'safe.'
ZARA PHILLIPS
Virtually everything that gets printed about me is wrong anyway, so it doesn't really matter wha...
ZARA PHILLIPS
It's stupid to say that I don't like being in the public eye, but I don't like doing stu...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I'm an affectionate person.
ZARA PHILLIPS
People still text me to say that there is something about me in the paper, and what really annoys me...
ZARA PHILLIPS
Sometimes people will come up in the street and say: 'My daughter loves you, will you sign an au...
ZARA PHILLIPS
Taking part in an Olympics on home ground is something you dream about.
ZARA PHILLIPS
My brother and I have been able to get on and have been very lucky to do things with our family that...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I don't think about the media.
ZARA PHILLIPS
I love the sport and being competitive.
ZARA PHILLIPS
The horses are all characters, all personalities. Some you get along with, some you don't, some ...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I hate having my picture taken.
ZARA PHILLIPS
Unfortunately in sport it's either good or bad. You've got to take the highs and the lows.
ZARA PHILLIPS
My mother is massively into sailing, so we always had Musto clothes, and it went on from there, real...
ZARA PHILLIPS
The senior members of the royal family work very hard and I don't think people quite realise tha...
ZARA PHILLIPS
In our sport you're very lucky to find a horse of a lifetime and I found mine relatively early. ...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I don't have a stylist, and I do most of my shopping online, just because it's easier. I don...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I think Facebook's dangerous. So many people I know get into trouble with Facebook... I'd ra...
ZARA PHILLIPS
I'm not a princess anyway so I find that quite weird to be labelled as one.
ZARA PHILLIPS
Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.
KING JAMES I
My dear mamma is quite right when she says that we must lay down principles and not depart from them...
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I never make a trip to the United States without visiting a supermarket. To me they are more fascina...
WALLIS SIMPSON
PS: It's all gossip about the prince. I'm not in the habit of taking my girlfriends' bea...
WALLIS SIMPSON
I am so anxious for you not to abdicate and I think the fact that you do is going to put me in the w...
WALLIS SIMPSON
I hate this place. I shall hate it to my grave.
WALLIS SIMPSON
I look a hundred and weigh 110 - you won't love me when you see the wreck England has made me.
WALLIS SIMPSON
A woman's life can really be a succession of lives, each revolving around some emotionally compe...
WALLIS SIMPSON
Never explain, never complain.
WALLIS SIMPSON
You have no idea how hard it is to live out a great romance.
WALLIS SIMPSON
I have always had the courage for the new things that life sometimes offers.
WALLIS SIMPSON
For a gallant spirit there can never be defeat.
WALLIS SIMPSON
Forgive me for not writing but this man is exhausting.
WALLIS SIMPSON
You can never be too rich or too thin.
WALLIS SIMPSON
A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
KING SOLOMON
It seems to me that man is made to act rather than to know: the principles of things escape our most...
FREDERICK THE GREAT
Addiction is a hugely complex and destructive disease, and its impact can be simply devastating. All...
KATE MIDDLETON
There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all.
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I think change needs to be egoless. It's not about my leaving my fingerprints or a legacy. It...
QUEEN RANIA OF JORDAN
We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat. They do not exist.
QUEEN VICTORIA
I can make a lord, but only God can make a gentleman.
KING JAMES I
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
CHARLES V
I feel very, very lucky that George has got a little sister.
KATE MIDDLETON
It would be doing me great injustice to think that I have any feeling of indifference to my country;...
MARIE ANTOINETTE
I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.
AUGUSTUS
A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.
FREDERICK THE GREAT
Nothing is more useless in developing a nation's economy than a gun, and nothing blocks the road...
HUSSEIN OF JORDAN
It is necessary to try to pass one's self always; this occupation ought to last as long as life.
QUEEN CHRISTINA

More Shauna Niequist

To those of us who believe that all of life is sacred every crumb of bread and sip of wine is a Euch...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
If the home is a body, the table is the heart, the beating center, the sustainer of life and health.
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end,...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard, she said, is figuring out ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is abo...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
believe that this way of living, this focus on the present, the daily, the tangible, this intense co...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I have always, essentially, been waiting. Waiting to become something else, waiting to be that perso...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Everybody has a home team: It’s the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something ter...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
...sometimes the happiest ending isn't the one you keep longing for, but something you absolutely ca...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I’m not talking about cooking as performance, or entertaining as a complicated choreography of com...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Food matters because it's one of the things that forces us to live in this world -- this tactile, ph...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
The heart of hospitality is about creating space for someone to feel seen and heard and loved. It's ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
It’s sloppy theology to think that all suffering is good for us, or that it’s a result of sin. A...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
We create because we were made to create, having been made in the image of God, whose first role was...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
A story is never about one person. It has a full cast of characters, connected by blood or love or j...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
When we, any of us who have been transformed by Christ, tell our own stories, we’re telling the st...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I think preparing food and feeding people brings nourishment not only to our bodies but to our spiri...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
When things fall apart, the broken pieces allow all sorts of things to enter, and one of them is the...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I believe that suffering is part of the narrative, and that nothing really good gets built when ever...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow.
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Use what you have, use what the world gives you. Use the first day of fall: bright flame before wint...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I've spent most of my life and most of my friendships holding my breath and hoping that when people ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
We sometimes choose the most locked up, dark versions of the story, but what a good friend does is t...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Many of the most deeply spiritual moments of my life haven't happened just in my mind or in my soul....
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
The grandest seduction of all is the myth that DOING EVERYTHING BETTER gets us where we want to be. ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I didn’t ask you to become new and improved today. That wasn’t the goal. You were broken down an...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
My Mom and Dad and brother have grown through the years into my closest friends, the people who tell...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Life is painful, and we carry with us so much disappointment and heartbreak. But I’m fighting to s...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
What God does in the tiny corners of our day-to-day lives is stunning and gorgeous and headline-maki...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Thank you, God, for the things you heal, the things you redeem, the things you refuse to leave just ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
When I write, I can see things that I can't otherwise see, and I feel things that I can't otherwise ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
something has to get you back to prayer, and in my experience, the surest thing in either case is de...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
God gives us something amazing when he gives us life, and I want to live with gratitude. I want to l...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
The world is alive, blinking and clicking, winking at us slyly, inviting us to get up and dance to t...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Nothing good comes easily. You have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
But this is what I’m finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possibl...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
But when you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you c...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
When you're (traveling) with someone else, you share each discovery, but when you are alone, you hav...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
What writing teaches me, over and over, is that God is waiting to be found everywhere, in the darkes...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I don't want to wait anymore. I choose to believe that there is nothing more sacred or profound than...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I am still surprised on a regular basis at the love I feel for the spirit of God, the deep respect a...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Friendship is an opportunity to act on God's behalf in the lives of the people that we're close to, ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Today is your big moment. Moments, really. The life you’ve been waiting for is happening all aroun...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Everything is interim. Everything is a path or a preparation for the next thing, and we never know w...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I'm a reader and a storyteller, and God chose literature and story and poetry as the languages of my...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
I believe that this way of living, this focus on the present, the daily, the tangible, this intense ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily li...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Today is your big moment. Moments, really. The life you've been waiting for is happening all around ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
But this is what I'm finding, in glimpses and flashes: this is it. This is it, in the best possible ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Celebration when your plan is working? Anyone can do that. But when you realize that the story of yo...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
To all the secret writers, late-night painters, would-be singers, lapsed and scared artists of every...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
There are times when the actual experience of leaving something makes you wish desperately that you ...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Life sneaks up on us every once in a while and gives us something we didn't ever know we wanted, and...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
But entertaining isn't a sport or a competition. It's an act of love, if you let it be. You can twis...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Life hands us opportunities at every turn to get over ourselves, to get outside ourselves, to wake u...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
Some of the most life-shaping decisions you make in this season will be about walking away from good...
SHAUNA NIEQUIST
That would be a nightmare for me to have to replace Val. Bethany Hart was ready. I know she could ha...
SHAUNA ROHBOCK
Nobody comes in here not wanting to win a medal. It's definitely a daydream, coming across the line,...
SHAUNA ROHBOCK
Noone can truely love you, if you are not truely loving you! Fall in love with you and you will disc...
SHAUNA LEVERINGSTON
Love is the greatest gift.... is what the bible tell us. Time waits for noone......... here today go...
SHAUNA LEVERINGSTON
I just think that Jean and I are very competitive teammates, but we have a healthy competitive natur...
SHAUNA ROHBOCK
I've had students who have not been really excited about the orchestra program that have decided the...
SHAUNA SMITH
I'm Not Granted the Mind of Knowing, Nor Blessed with the Luxury of Controlling What Lies Ahead. How...
SHAUNA J. GUTIERREZ