Susan Meissner

“Control is an illusion. No one has it. I don't even have it. You can't wish for control you can only learn to play your part in a world where nothing is truly certain. And you do have a part to play.”

“The past hadn't been erased just because a new future had been handed it.”

“Shut your eyes to the world of pain, and you also shut your eyes to the world of delight.”

“The person who completes your life, is not so much the person who shares all the years of your existence, but rather, the person who made your life worth living -- no matter how long or short a time you are given to spend with them.”

“That's what we did, didn't we, Audrey? We learned to be brave when it was easier to be afraid.”

“... love and fear can sometimes feel the same, but each will lead a person to take different actions. When a decision h as to be made, fear usually motivates me to choose what is best for me, whereas love motivates me to choose what is best for another person. Fear urges me to hang on, white knuckled, to what is mine, while love can actually lead me to let go.... when you hold something you love tightly to your chest for fear of losing it, you actually risk crushing it against you.”

“We were both shattered. We were broken people who longed to be whole. We thought it was love that was driving us to do what we did. But it wasn't love. It was fear. We were both too afraid of ending up unwanted and unneeded.”

“Sometimes asking God for a reason for something is like asking Him why the sky is blue. There is a complex, scientific reason for it, Claire, but most children, including you, are content with knowing it is blue because it is. If we understood everything about everything, we would have no need for faith.”

“Oh, but it's our tears that make us human, Isabel.”

“I used to think mercy meant showing kindness to someone who didn't deserve it, as if only the recipient defined the act. The girl in between has learned that mercy is defined by its giver. Our flaws are obvious, yet we are loved and able t love, if we choose, because there is that bit of the divine still smoldering in us.”

“I'm not sure why God made us the way He did... As to why we're here, well, I think maybe we're here to learn to love Him. To learn to love God and to want to be with Him. I think we're here to cultivate our longing for heaven. 'Luke sighed. 'Heaven,' he said, 'seems like a long, long way off, Dad.'Jack nodded. 'It does. But I think God gives us glimpses of heaven from time to time to help up nurture the desire... I see glimpses every spring when the earth renews itself. And sometimes I see glimpses in a worship service when I'm singing about Jesus and all of a sudden I feel like I'm right there in His arms.”

“It is much harder to pretend than it is to simply be who you already are.”

“You shouldn't imagine things that you haven't a shred of proof happened...”

“We're going to be okay. Lainey isn't the glue that keeps us together. We are. We're the glue. Okay?”

“Everything beautiful has a story it wants to tell'" she said reading aloud the store's tagline at the top of the form.. "I love that.”

“Please don't let the unhappiness you knew in the past keep you from accepting happiness now.”