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Last week I wrote about chapter 14 and 15. Today, I'm sharing on chapter 16 and 17. Next week will be my last post in this series – chapter 18 and some thoughts on the whole book. Be sure to go check out other great posts linked up at Momma Day By Day.
Here are some quotes from these chapters. (I'm reading in the Kindle app for iPad so no page numbers.)
- One of the good girl's most basic fears is failure.
- She began to believe that because she came from a broken family, she was therefore broken herself.
- If there was one thing her parents taught her it was that she needed a contingency plan, because her desire for marriage would probably not pan out. Anticipate rejection. Plan for the worst. Depend on yourself. And by all means, be a good girl.
- As hard as it is for this good girl to believe, failure is not the ultimate disqualifier.
- It is so important to share our weaknesses, failures, and regrets with other women we trust.
- The only thing he knew to do was to go back to where he had been before he ever met Jesus.
- My fear of, regret over, and inability to handle failure has kept me in hiding. But it isn't only my failure that keeps me from living free. I hold myself to an impossible standard, but I hold you to it too.
- But understand that the reason it is so difficult to extend forgiveness to those who have failed us is because we are unable to receive forgiveness for our own failures.
- When what you do determines who you are, then failure to do means failure to be.
- The only antidote to the poisonous lie of performance is forgiveness. We have to receive forgiveness in order to live free because we cannot give what we have not first received.
- Which is more important to you: to be right or to be free?
- If you continue to put your own insatiable desire to be right and heard and understood as the central hub on the wheel of your life, you will forever be going nowhere, and you may never be free.
- In the same way your failure doesn't define you, their failure doesn't define you, either.
- They may have hurt you, but don't let them define you.
- it's about the journey.
- To accept the lovely, the messy, and the unexpected things in our days, knowing that God sees them and has an eternal perspective, is to say with confidence I receive your timing. I accept that you know so I don't have to. Even when it all goes wrong.
Failure.
One of my biggest fears is failure. I avoid it all costs. But my definition of failure is based on my skewed definition of perfection. I also avoid other's failures as all cost. I have mistakenly seen the failure of those around me as a reflection on me.
I'll be sharing more soon, but I've chose “perfect” as my “one word” for 2012. I want to pursue God's biblical definition of perfect rather than perfection rooted in me.
Safety.
Do I believe Romans 8:28? When things seem to be going wrong, I so quickly pull out my masks of “fear of failure” and “indifference.” I shelter myself from pain, forgetting that sometimes pain is a sign of growth.
I have to let go of my “right” to be right and pursue freedom instead. Maybe God's definition of “perfect” includes a component of freedom? Getting there can be messy. It doesn't always feel safe. I have to remember that God is in control. I may not ever fully understand things that God takes me though, but I know that it is all working together for His plan – not mine.
Missed a week of the discussion? You can start here for the whole series.
