Christie Purifoy Quotes

When something breaks down or does not go as planned, we are given a glimpse of our great need.

We must plant our dreams in real earth. We must dirty our hands. It's the only way. Whether we dream of planting flower gardens or churches, ever dream needs a place in which to take root and grow. Every dream needs a home.

That our lives are not defined by what we've lost but by all that returns, fresh and new.

What is God doing in my life? In the mornings, I wake to find that he has traced the world in silver. Every blade of grass. Each pumpkin on the porch. In the afternoons, I find him washing these fields with the mellow sunlight of autumn. He has gilded every rail in the fence and the sheet metal roof of the old red barn. He has transformed familiar trees into something otherworldly.

I am uncertain whether I took my first steps on clay soil or sand, but I know I have long wondered if home is the place from which we come or the place we are headed.

When we begin from a place of belief, no matter how small or insubstantial, we can see what was always there, hidden in plain sight.

Our lives are stories built of small moments. Ordinary experiences. It is too easy to forget that our days are adding up to something astonishing. We do not often stop to notice the signs and wonders. The writing on the wall.

During Advent, we prepare room in a new day for an old story. Through our attentive waiting, we participate in the story of the season and make it new again. And we are made new by it. We emerge at the other end of Advent's tunnel, and we are not as we were when our journey began.

I want to observe the ordinary things of earth - the moon, the stars, the rainbows, even the yellow leaves of the old cherry trees - and receive their messages. To hear them say what every weary traveler, every earnest seeker, longs to hear. Welcome home.