Sister Wendy On Prayer Quotes

God never sends suffering. Never. It is never "God's will" that we should suffer. God would like us not to suffer. But since the world brings suffering, and since God refuses to use His almighty power and treat us as foolish children, He aligns Himself with us, goes into Auschwitz with us, is devastated by 9/11 with us, and draws us with Him through it all into fulfillment. This is a high price to pay for our human freedom, but it is worth it. To be mere automatons for whom God arranges the world to cause us no suffering would mean we never have a self. We could not make choices. ~ Wendy Beckett

We finally made our way to the front of the line, where a young bouncer snapped an underage wristband on me and gave me an appraising look, eyes scanning my waist-length hair before raising the velvet rope. I rushed under it with Jay on my heels.
"For real, Anna, don't let me stand in the way of all these dudes tonight." Jay laughed behind me, raising his voice as we entered the already packed room, music thumping. I knew I should have put my hair up before we came, but Jay's sister, Jana had insisted on my keeping it down. I pulled my hair over my shoulder and wound it into a rope with my finger, looking around at the tightly packed crowd and wincing slightly at the noise and blasts of emotion.
"They only think they like me because they don't know me," I said.
Jay shook his head. "I hate when you say things like that."
"Like what? That I'm especially special?"
I was trying to make a joke, using the term us Southerners fondly called people who "weren't right" but anger burst gray from Jay's chest, surprising me, then fizzled away.
"Don't talk about yourself that way. You're just...shy."
I was weird and we both knew it. But I didn't like to upset him, and it felt ridiculous having a serious conversation at the top of our lungs.
Jay pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the screen as it vibrated in his hand. He grinned and handed it to me. Patti.
"Hello?" I stuck a finger in my other ear so I could hear.
"I'm just chec ~ Wendy Higgins

When people misuse a text with "Did God really say...?" to shut down someone's honest wrestling with God, they betray what seems to be their own lack of faith and humility. We ought not to be threatened by someone's searching. We ought not to try to control the outcomes in another's journey. We ought not to resort to using shame or fear or guilt to ensure others share our certainties. God can be trusted to lead those who question and struggle through prayer, his Word, their minds, and their experiences. Let's focus on encouraging one another rather than accusing and condemning one another. ~ Wendy Vanderwal-Gritter

My sister Wendy has a husband and two children, and they have a family photo on top of the VCR, where they're all looking slightly to the left. As though something is going on over there! I guess something happened over to the left that made everybody happy! Except my sister is cross-eyed, so she can't quite pull it off. One eye is right-on. ~ Mitch Hedberg

Bending over her bed, I saw the smile
I must have seen when gaping up from the crib.
Knowing death will come, sensing its onset,
may be a fair price for consciousness.
But looking at my sister, I wished
she could have died by surprise,
without ever knowing about death.
Too late. Wendy said, "I am in three parts.
Here on the left is red. That is pain.
On the right is yellow. That is exhaustion.
The rest is white. I don't know yet what white is. ~ Galway Kinnell

Jerry Falwell knows who caused the terrorist attack on America: the ACLU. "The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this," he declared on the 700 Club, because, he explained, the ACLU, abetted by the federal courts is responsible for "throwing God out of the public square (and) the public schools."This is a familiar charge and a false one. God is still present in the public schools, where students are free to pray, alone or in groups, so long as their prayers aren't officially sponsored and don't infringe on anyone's freedom not to pray. ~ Wendy Kaminer

For prayer is nothing else than being on terms of friendship with God. ~ Teresa Of Avila

To be guilty of the sin of prayerlessness is to be guilty of the worst form of practical atheism. It is actually saying we can get along without His help while the evidence is very clear on every hand that we cannot. Could it be that the sin of prayerlessness steams from our unbelief that he is a living God who exercises direct influence on the affairs of men? ~ Bruce Willis

Spiritual formation is not about steps or stages on the way to perfection. It's about the movements from the mind to the heart through prayer in its many forms that reunite us with God, each other, and our truest selves. ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

What is in our hearts when we pray has more effect on whether our prayers are answered than the actual prayer itself. That's why, when we come before God to pray, He asks us to first confess anything in our hearts that shouldn't be there. He does that so nothing will separate us from Him. ~ Stormie O'martian

The most powerful prayer, one well-nigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own. ~ Meister Eckhart

I remember really vividly kneeling by my bed as a nine-year-old, saying my prayers and asking God to give me boobs that were so big that if I laid on my back I wouldn't be able to see my feet. ~ Katy Perry

Anna finds remnants of cocaine on my coffee table and goes all daughter-of-Belial on me. ~ Wendy Higgins

The help of God does not come to us when we are indifferent. It comes to the man who is depending on God in the thick of the light. It comes to the one who tarries for the vision in faith. It comes to the one who believes that he who waits upon The Lord shall never be confounded. It comes to the one who rests upon the promises of the Word. It comes to the one who beleives that before he calls, God will answer. It comes to the man who lives by faith as if in the actual possession of the answer to his prayer, although the enemy is still around him. It is faith which turns distress into singing. ~ Alan Redpath

The pain of regret is far worse than the pain of discipline.

We will never have the anointing, the ministry or the revivals of our heroes if we don't become as disciplined as they were. They went to bed early to get up early to pray, and they fasted for days on end.

We shouldn't just pray to mark it off of our lists or read a few chapters of our Bible each day to keep up with the church Bible reading chart. We must have a deeper purpose for doing these tasks.

Discipline without direction is drudgery. In other words, discipline has to have a purpose to drive it each and every day.

The price for spiritual change is expensive, but the rewards are far greater.

The world's ways, ideologies, and influence cannot be present in a life dedicated to Jesus because consecration's purpose is for us to be different from the world. And, for that matter, if we are separate from the world, then sin must not be a part of our lives either. Sin ruins a life of consecration.

It would be a shame to believe that holiness is nothing more than rules or guidelines we are to live by. Holiness and consecration flow from a life given to the spiritual disciplines, a life we can only maintain by continuing to seek for Him daily.

Your pursuit will never be greater than your disciplines.

No man is greater than his prayer life.

Even though Jesus requires us to pray, praying is not to be done out of duty, but it ~ Nathan Whitley

I had a tattoo once," said Kaidan. "Last year, just before we left England."
"What do you mean, you had one 'once'?"
"Bloody thing was gone by the morning!" His voice was indignant. "Sheets were black with ink. I put myself through all of that for hours, and my body just pushed it back out!"
And once again we were both in a fit of hysterics, sharing the world's best inside joke. We were doubled over, unable to breathe, and I accidentally snorted. Kaidan pointed at me and laughed harder, clutching his stomach.
"What was your tattoo?" I managed to push the words out.
"You had to ask. It was a deadly-looking pair of black wings on my shoulder blades."
Kaidan and I started roaring again, muscles clenching from the exertion.
We had no way of knowing it would be our last reason to laugh for a very long time. ~ Wendy Higgins

I think that frequently, many times in the beginning of our path as artists, we do have to deal with our upsets and our negativeness - in regard to, mostly, ourselves. We may be taking it out on our loved ones or people close to us, but really we're just mad at ourselves for not giving ourselves the time to devote to our inner development and doing the soul work through our art work. So there's a certain amount of working through that. You may have to cry, you may have to dance, you may have to get the energy moving in whatever way you can, and if you need to scream as you work that's as much of a prayer as the more refined kinds of artist's prayers. Sometimes it's a more direct kind of thing. You can scream in rage, you can scream your need for God, whatever's there for you. You've got to start where you're at. If you think that you can just start making spiritual art without addressing all the build-up of shadow material that you may be carrying around with you, and it's leaking out at the borders, then I don't think that's any good. You've got to be true. So wherever you're at, that's where you start.
And as far as the artist creating spiritual or visionary art, I think that it's obvious and important that the artist experience the transpersonal states prior to them trying to bring it out in their work, otherwise they're just doing imitative or derivative kind of work. It has to be from some authentic inner experience, and as long as you've had some experience of you ~ Alex Grey

I'd always put on little shows at home, but when I was 11, I did a community event in Woodford, where anyone could go. You had three days of vocal training and performed your song at the end. ~ Naomi Scott

Facts about Jesus that I told Kimberly to annoy her
1. Jesus was Jewish
2. Jesus was a socialist
3. Jesus was a refugee
4. Jesus was anti-death penalty
5. Jesus was anti-school prayer (Matthew 6:5)
6. Jesus was opposed to the accumulation of wealth
7. Jesus was silent on the issues of homosexuality and gay marriage
8. Jesus was a brown-skinned Middle Easterner who wore sandals to the dinner table
9. Jesus was a friend to prostitutes ~ Matthew Dicks

Let you remind yourself once more today that times of suffering or privation do not lasts forever. All winters always turn to spring i.e. in principle, no spring skips its turn. This is the law of the universe & the law of life. As long as we hold on to hopes, spring is sure to come in our lives too. All it needs is your time, earnest efforts, right pace, devotion, dedication, goodness & perseverance to make everything peachy, delightful & beautiful in your life & in your world back again & again. Let you also practice self-care, mindfulness, healing, joy & stop yourself from burning out in the mean time. Let your good deeds help you to create a more unprejudiced, peaceful, happy & sustainable world around yourself. Let you engage yourself more in all that is auspicious & let God bless you & keep you in good health & spirits always. Stay Magical, Extraordinary & Successful! ~ Rajesh Goyal

It is God's will through His wonderful grace, that the prayers of His saints should be one of the great principal means of carrying on the designs of Christ's kingdom in the world. When God has something very great to accomplish for His church, it is His will that there should precede it the extraordinary prayers of His people; as is manifest by Ezekiel 36:37. and it is revealed that, when God is about to accomplish great things for His church, He will begin by remarkably pouring out the spirit of grace and supplication (see Zechariah 12:10). ~ Jonathan Edwards

You will always receive help within a second of a prayer. To recognize the help, you must see everything in your life from that second on as a part of the answer to your prayer. ~ Caroline Myss

Dear God

Please take away my pain and despair of yesterday and any unpleasant memories and replace them with Your glorious promise of new hope. Show me a fresh HS-inspired way of relating to negative things that have happened. I ask You for the mind of Christ so I can discern Your voice from the voice of my past. I pray that former rejection and deep hurts will not color what I see and hear now.

Help me to see all the choices I have ahead of me that can alter the direction of my life. I ask You to empower me to let go of the painful events and heartaches that would keep me bound. Thank You for Your forgiveness that You have offered to me at such a great price. Pour it into my heart so I can relinquish bitterness hurts and disappointments that have no place in my life. Please set me free to forgive those who have sinned against me and caused me pain and also myself. Open my heart to receive Your complete forgiveness and amazing grace. You have promised to bind up my wounds Psa 147:3 and restore my soul Psa 23:3 .

Help me to relinquish my past surrender to You my present and move to the future You have prepared for me. I ask You to come into my heart and make me who You would have me to be so that I might do Your will here on earth. I thank You Lord for all that's happened in my past and for all I have become through those experiences. I pray You will begin to gloriously renew my present. ~ Sue Augustine

Thinking is indispensable on the path to passion for God. Thinking is not an end in itself. Nothing but God himself is finally an end in itself. Thinking is not the goal of life. Thinking can be the ground for boasting. Thinking, without prayer, without the Holy Spirit, without obedience, without love, will puff up and destroy (1 Cor. 8:1).
But thinking under the mighty hand of God, thinking soaked in prayer, thinking carried by the Holy Spirit, thinking tethered to the Bible, thinking in pursuit of more reasons to praise and proclaim the glories of God, thinking in the service of love
such thinking is indispensable in a life of fullest praise to God. ~ John Piper

I love a doctor who can respect that somebody else is on your team, and that's God. ~ Robin Roberts

We must not decide how anyone else should or shouldn't be Living.
Whenever I'm about to use the word "should" I use the word "could" instead. Should is judgemental, could is empowering.

Try it out on yourself with the things that you talk to yourself about...
I should do better. or I could do better. ~ Raymond D. Longoria Jr.

The scriptures serve as guideposts to keep us on the right path, and prayer is our helpline when we have lost our way or need to be redirected. ~ Diane Goold

I think the reason we sometimes have the false sense that God is so far away is because that is where we have put him. We have kept him at a distance, and then when we are in need and call on him in prayer, we wonder where he is. He is exactly where we left him. ~ Ravi Zacharias

Some time ago my friend, Father Gilbert, sent me from Maryland a small leaflet, and on it it a sketch of water, sky, a boat and a solitary man, in blues and greens, and, a prayer.

...The few words are called "Breton Fishermen's Prayer' and they read:

Dear God be good to me,
The sea is so wide
And my boat is so small.

This is a prayer for us all, for the world is a wide sea and the vessel of our lives is small and vulnerable and there are reefs and rocks, tides and storms which we must encounter.

But on the wide sea there is light... ~ Faith Baldwin

Being kind is one of the hardest thing to be in high school because you're so terrified of being cut down yourself that you're always on your guard. But don't be like that. Be kind and you will be truly different. A standout. Unique and happy. ~ Wendy Wunder

Ah, when shall come love's courage to be strong!
Tell me, O Lord
tell me, O Lord, how long
Are we to keep Christ writhing on the cross! ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson

Friends are sometimes the only thing that keep us from plunging into the abyss. But you have to reach for them, and they have to be there on the other side of the cliff reaching out to you too. ~ Wendy Mills

It had had a fragrant element, reminding him of a regular childhood experience, a memory that reverberated like the chimes of a prayer bell inside his head. For a few moments, he pictured the old Orthodox church that had dominated his remote Russian village. The bearded priest was swinging the elaborate incense-burner, suspended from gold-plated chains. It had been the same odour. Hadn't it? He blinked, shook his head. He couldn't make sense of that.
He decided, with an odd lack of enthusiasm, that he'd imagined it. The effects of the war played tricks of the mind, of the senses. Looking over his shoulder, he counted all seven of his men as they emerged from the remnants of the four-storey civic office building.
A few muddied documents were scattered on the ground, stamped with the official Nazi Party eagle, its head turned to the left, and an emblem he failed to recognize, but which looked to him like a decorative wheel, with a geometrical design of squares at its centre. Even a blackened flag had survived the bomb damage. Hanging beneath a crumbling windowsill, the swastika flapped against the bullet-ridden façade, the movement both panicky and defiant, Pavel thought.
His men were conscripts. A few still wore their padded khaki jackets and mustard-yellow blouses. Most, their green field tunics and forage caps. All the clothing was lice-ridden and smeared with soft ash. Months of exposure to frozen winds had darkened their skins and narrowed their eyes. They'd ~ Gary Haynes

Daily study of the scriptures is [an] important family activity. I remember when my son was seven years old. He was taking a shower one night during a storm when we lost the power in our home. My wife called to him and told him to hurry to finish his shower and to then take a candle and come slowly downstairs for our family prayer. She warned him to be careful to not drop the candle on the carpet because it could start a fire and the house could burn down. Several minutes later he came down the stairs struggling to hold the candle in one hand, and with his other arm he was carrying his scriptures. His mother asked him why he was bringing his scriptures. His answer to her was 'Mom, if the house burns down, I must save my scriptures!' We knew that our efforts to help him to love the scriptures had been planted in his heart forever. ~ Claudio Costa

I want to introduce myself to every freckle on your body. ~ Wendy Higgins

We have not yet learned that we are more powerful on our knees than behind the most powerful weapons that can be developed. ~ Billy Graham

The more we rely on God, the better our lives will be. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

All of Jesus' teaching on prayer in the Gospels can be summarized with one word: ask. ~ Paul E. Miller

Fig leaned in close, his chest pressed to her back, his palm flat on her belly. "Time to muster up some moxie, Roxie," he whispered. "Every woman in this bar is wishing she had a body as gorgeous as yours, and every man is wishing he had your long, beautiful legs clamped around his butt."
Roxie relaxed. Smiled even. "Does that include you?" [...]
"Nah." [...] "My wish involves them wrapped around my head. ~ Wendy S. Marcus

He wonders by what process virtually any discussion about the war seems to profane these ultimate matters of life and death. As if to talk of such things properly we need a mode of speech near the equal of prayer, otherwise just shut, shut your yap and sit on it, silence being truer to the experience than the star-spangled spasm, the bittersweet sob, the redeeming hug, or whatever this fucking closure is that everybody's always talking about. They want it to be easy and it's just not going to be. ~ Ben Fountain

Here's the deal: no touching, no hand-holding, no flirting, no sexy talk, no dancing, and absolutely no kissy face."

"You didn't mention no sex, did you? I might have you on a technicality."


"You and me alone, eating, talking, maybe even having a good time. Yeah, it might be a date."


"I've seen what's in your pantry, and I respect my arteries too much to indulge."

"That's the thing about snakes - even if they're harmless, they look like such badasses it doesn't really matter."

"You're lying. You're really wearing a pair of granny panties. ~ Wendy Byrne

Prayer is a specific divine appointment, an ordinance of Heaven, whereby God purposes to carry out His gracious designs on earth and to execute and make efficient the plan of salvation. ~ Edward McKendree Bounds

Since every evil is found in sin, either as a consequence or as the sin itself, when we want to pray wholeheartedly to get rid of evil, we should say, think, or mean this little word - sin, nothing else. No other words are needed. On the other hand, if we pray intently to get anything good, we should cry out in word, thought, or longing nothing but this word - God, nothing else. No other words are needed; for God's very nature is goodness, and he's the source of everything good. Don't spend time wondering why I chose these two words over all of the others. I looked into it and found none better. If I had, or if God had taught me different ones, I would have chosen them over these, but I can think of no shorter words that so well represent everything good or everything evil. Follow my example. Don't analyze words at length because studying them isn't the same as doing the work of contemplative prayer. Only grace gives this gift. ~ Anonymous

It's great to talk about how good things are now. But we can't sit on our laurels and expect that our time will sustain itself if we don't do a better job on issues like education ... It's absolutely the case that the low cost of college tuition that I was able to enjoy and the financial aid I was able to receive made my education possible. ~ Wendy Davis

When I start getting old, I'm going to start ending my prayers like, "Lord, it'd be a good day to die." I don't wanna be 130 years old with a diaper on, all my friends dead and gone. I wanna get to heaven, come get me! ~ Suge Knight

The perfume of the flowers and of the bay tree are wafted on high, like incense. The birds sing sweet songs of praise to their Creator. In the tops of the trees, the soughing of the wind is like the hushed prayers of the multitude in some vast cathedral. Here the heart of man becomes impressionable. ~ William Wendt