Inspired by the writing prompt summer challenge (you should participate, you still have a couple of weeks to tackle the prompts) here are my favorite quotes. I use these three quotes when I share my testimony, and they explains my tagline, “finding beauty in brokenness.”

It is the pain we walk through that defines the women we are…it hones the difference we make. It isn’t something that we achieve by strength and character and virtue and strength and savvy. it is something we receive with open hands by God’s grace. And that happens most when we feel broken and humbled and empty and totally inadequate—and we make that choice to trust that God will make His difference in us and through us, right in the midst of our brokenness.

– Leslie Parrott

The most personal is the most universal, the most hidden is the most public, and the most solitary is the most communal. What we live in the most intimate places of our beings is not just for us but for all people. That is why our inner lives are lives for others.

– Henri Nouwen

The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides in the immense sorrow that has gone before….our brokenness may appear beautiful, but our brokenness has no other beauty but the beauty that comes from the compassion that surrounds it.

– Henri Nouwen