Turning My Life Over To God Quotes

Lord God, I confess that my son/daughter is loosed from all bondage - set free by the precious blood of Jesus. No past, present, or future bondage will ever prevail against ____________. The world, sin, deception, satanic enticements, the flesh, even fear of death - none of these things will ever be able to enslave this child who is dedicated to You. I pray that You will always be a deliverer, guardian, and guide to ____________, bringing him/her out of any weakness, darkness, or difficult situation of life. I pray that by Your mighty hand You will lead my child into the promised land of his/her destiny. You are the almighty God! There is nothing too hard for You! So I declare redemption over my offspring, believing it will come to pass. In the name of Jesus, amen (let it be so)! ~ Mike Shreve

I want you here. I want you in my home, my bed, my life," he murmured, the smooth out of his voice, it was low and so rough with sex and emotion, it was abrasive, scoring through me.
"Baby –"
"I want your clothes in my closet. I wanna hear your voice in my house when you're talkin' on the phone. I want you sittin' beside me when we're watchin' TV. I want shit you like in my fridge. I want "your razors in my shower. I want my roof over your head. Your car in my garage. I want to give you what I should have been giving you for sixteen years. As good as you deserve. A showplace. A place where I can make you happy."
God. He was killing me.
"Creed, let me –"
He didn't let me finish. He pressed on, driving in, our bodies jolting with his thrusts, his voice harsh in my ear.

"Give me that, Sylvie. Give me that and, swear to God, I'll give you everything."
"I –"
His head came up, his cock drove deep and stayed planted and his eyes burned into mine.
"All I'll ask. All I'll ever ask. You give me that and you got a lifetime of nothin' but take. ~ Kristen Ashley

I would love to have a more earnest prayer life! In my life, prayer is the single most difficult discipline. I love God and there's something in me that would rather do things for God than talk to God. I'm not by nature a mystical, devotional person. I like to do things. And so it's a challenge for me to have a faithful prayer life, but I know God loves me and He's not mad at me. He just wishes I would slow down and turn things over to Him. And that's what I think you achieve through prayer. ~ Max Lucado

She lay quiet, looking at the ceiling. 'I wish the peace to come back,' she said.

'He himself is the peace. He comes if we invite him, and stays, if we ask. It's ourselves who wander away.'

'Why do we wander away?'

'Its the old free-will business - we're charmed by the self, by our own pointless self-seeking.'

'What does he want from us?'

'He wants us to ask him into our lives, to give everything over to him, once and for all.'

'I can't imagine.'

'I couldn't either. I heard it preached and talked about all my life. I exegeted Romans and memorized vast amounts of scripture before I was twelve years old, but somehow it went in one ear and out the other - I got the bone, but not the marrow. Long after becoming a priest, I remained terrified of surrendering anything, much less everything. And then one day I did.'

'Why?'

'Because I could no longer bear the separation from him.'

She licked her dry lips. 'You said there would be nothing to lose.'

'And everything to gain.'

'I don't wish to be humiliated.'

'By God?' He took the lid from the balm and moistened the swab.

'By anyone, and especially God.'

'God does not humiliate the righteous. He may fire us in the kiln to make us vessels, crush us like grapes so we become wine - but he never humiliates. That is the game of little people.'

'I have always depended on ~ Jan Karon

So, my dear…"
She faced him with thudding heart, the crystal piece clutched desperately in her hand, but she was hardly aware that she even held it.
"… You say I have let another man into my bed."
Erienne opened her mouth to speak. Her first impulse was to chatter some inanity that could magically take the edge from his callous half statement, half question. No great enlightenment dawned, however, and her dry, parched throat issued no sound of its own. She inspected the stopper closely, turning it slowly in her hand rather than meet the accusing stare.
From behind the mask, Lord Saxton observed his wife closely, well aware that the next moments would form the basis for the rest of his life or leave it an empty husk. After this, there could be no turning back.
"I think, my dear," his words made her start, "that whatever the cost, 'tis time you met the beast of Saxton Hall."
Erienne swallowed hard and clasped the stopper with whitened knuckles, as if to draw some bit of courage from the crystal piece.
As she watched, Lord Saxton doffed his coat, waistcoat, and stock, and she wondered if it was a trick of her imagination that he seemed somewhat lighter of frame. After their removal, he caught the heel of his right boot over the toe of the left and slowly drew the heavy, misshapen encumbrance from his foot. She frowned in open bemusement, unable to detect a flaw. He flexed the leg a moment before slipping off the other boot. His movements ~ Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

I was outside St. Cecelia's Rectory smoking a cigarette when a goat appeared beside me. It was mostly black and white, with a little reddish brown here and there. When I started to walk away, it followed. I was amused and delighted, but wondered what the laws were on this kind of thing. There's a leash law for dogs, but what about goats? People smiled at me and admired the goat. "It's not my goat," I explained. "It's the town's goat. I'm just taking my turn caring for it." "I didn't know we had a goat," one of them said. "I wonder when my turn is." "Soon," I said. "Be patient. Your time is coming." The goat stayed by my side. It stopped when I stopped. It looked up at me and I stared into its eyes. I felt he knew everything essential about me. We walked on. A police- man on his beat looked us over. "That's a mighty fine goat you got there," he said, stopping to admire. "It's the town's goat," I said. "His family goes back three-hundred years with us," I said, "from the beginning." The officer leaned forward to touch him, then stopped and looked up at me. "Mind if I pat him?" he asked. "Touching this goat will change your life," I said. "It's your decision." He thought real hard for a minute, and then stood up and said, "What's his name?" "He's called the Prince of Peace," I said. "God! This town is like a fairy tale. Everywhere you turn there's mystery and wonder. And I'm just a child playing cops and robbers forever. Please forgive me if I cry." "We forgive you, Officer," I ~ James Tate

Since my visit to the Hermitage, I had become more aware of the four figures, two women and two men, who stood around the luminous space where the father welcomed his returning son. Their way of looking leaves you wondering how they think or feel about what they are watching. These bystanders, or observers, allow for all sorts of interpretations. As I reflect on my own journey, I become more and more aware of how long I have played the role of observer. For years I had instructed students on the different aspects of the spiritual life, trying to help them see the importance of living it. But had I, myself, really ever dared to step into the center, kneel down, and let myself be held by a forgiving God?

The simple fact of being able to express an opinion, to set up an argument, to defend a position, and to clarify a vision has given me, and gives me still, a sense of control. And, generally, I feel much safer in experiencing a sense of control over an undefinable situation than in taking the risk of letting that situation control me.

Certainly there were many hours of prayer, many days and months of retreat, and countless conversations with spiritual directors, but I had never fully given up the role of bystander. Even though there has been in me a lifelong desire to be an insider looking out, I nevertheless kept choosing over and over again the position of the outsider looking in. Sometimes this looking-in was a curious looking-in, sometimes a jealous ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

My life, my life, now I speak of it as of something over, now as of a joke which still goes on, and it is neither, for at the same time it is over and it goes on, and is there any tense for that? Watch wound and buried by the watchmaker, before he died, whose ruined works will one day speak of God, to the worms. ~ Samuel Beckett

I see that my presence is burdensome to you. Painful as it was for me to become convinced of it, I see that it is so and cannot be otherwise. I do not blame you, and God is my witness that, seeing you during your illness, I resolved with all my soul to forget everything that had been between us and start a new life. I do not repent and will never repent of what I have done; but I desired one thing - your good, the good of your soul - and now I see that I have not achieved it. Tell me yourself what will give you true happiness and peace in your soul. I give myself over entirely to your will and your sense of justice. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it would have knocked the wind out of me.
When something that violent hits you, you can't help but lose your balance and fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you can't trust anybody to save you- not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what can you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all over again? ~ Amy Tan

I have got, over the years, a sense of the immense sweep of creation, of the evolutionary process in everything, of how incomprehensible God must necessarily be to be the God of heaven and earth. You can't fit the Almighty into your intellectual categories…. What kept me a skeptic [of secularism] in college was precisely my Christian faith. It always said: wait, don't bite on this, get a wider picture, continue to read. If you want your faith, you have to work for it…. Even in the life of a Christian, faith rises and falls like the tides of an invisible sea. It's there, even when he can't see it or feel it, if he wants it to be there. You realize, I think, that it is more valuable, more mysterious, altogether more immense than anything you can learn or decide in college. Learn what you can, but cultivate Christian skepticism. ~ Flannery O'Connor

There is an old Yiddish phrase I find apropos - but not by choice: "Man plans, God laughs." I am a prime example. My life was pretty much laid out for me. I was a basketball star my entire childhood, destined to be an NBA player for the Boston Celtics. But in my very first preseason game, Big Burt Wesson slammed into me and ruined my knee. I tried gamely to come back, but there is a big difference between gamely and effectively. My career was over before I hit the parquet floor. I ~ Harlan Coben

Although my justification was secured in a moment, the process of my understanding and acceptance took place over a year-long time of some guys being patient with me and loving me and walking with me. They invited me to church gatherings and spiritual events, and they even allowed me to mock those things. They just patiently explained them to me more fully. I asked a lot of questions that I now know won't be answered this side of heaven, but they let me ask them anyway, and they tried to answer. Sometimes they'd give me books to read. Through that whole year, God began to gather kindling around my life. ~ Matt Chandler

It is the way of the people," he responded again and again. "I will not interferre.Howling Wolf did what he thought would keep his wife."
Jesse was outraged, "And if I looked at another handsome brave,would Rides the Wind cut off my nose?"
Rides the Wind stared at her solemnly. "God's book has said that you must be faithful to me.We do not live as Howling Wolf and Prairie Flower." After a moment he added, "And if you were unfaithful to me, I would cut off your beautiful red hair, not your nose.For it is your hair that makes you beautiful."
Jesse refused to be distracted from the conversation. Finally,Rides the Wind became exasperated with her insistence. "Walks the Fire,it is enough," he almost shouted. "You say that Howling Wolf must be punished. He will bepunished. For all the days of his life he will have to look at the scar where he has hurt his wife.All the days of his life he will have to endure the sadness he has caused. And all the days of her life, Prairie Flower will remember when she was young and beautiful. White EAgle has left.It is over. We must pray for them, for they do not have God to help them. But I will not punish Howling Wolf for going what is his right among the Lakota. He will answer to God for what he has done. He does not have to answer to me. ~ Stephanie Grace Whitson

Now, that is probably my least favorite topic of conversation in the entire world. I have spent a great part of my life hearing that doctrine talked up and down, and no one's understanding ever advanced one iota. I've seen grown men, God-fearing men, come to blows over that doctrine. The first thought that came to my mind was, Of course he would bring up predestination! ~ Marilynne Robinson

It has taken me much of my life to begin to get to the second gaze. By nature I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am so impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses, as you might expect. Yet I cannot have one without the other, it seems. I cannot risk losing touch with either my angels or my demons. They are both good teachers.

I am convinced that guilt and shame are never from God. They are merely the defenses of the False Self as it is shocked at its own poverty - the defenses of a little man who wants to be a big man. God leads by compassion toward the soul, never by condemnation. If God would relate to us by severity and punitiveness, God would only be giving us permission to do the same (which is tragically, due to our mistaken images of God, exactly what has happened!).

God offers us, instead, the grace to "weep" over our sins more than to ever perfectly overcome them, to humbly recognize our littleness. (St. Thérèse of Lisieux brought this Gospel message home in our time.) The spiritual journey is a kind of weeping and a kind of wandering that keeps us both askew and thus awake at the same time. Thérèse called it her "little way."

So now in my later life, contemplation and compassion are finally coming together. This is my second gaze. It is well worth waiting for, because only the second gaze sees fully and truthfully. It sees itself, the other, and even God with God's own eyes, which are always eyes of compassio ~ Richard Rohr

Pride is characterized by "What do I want out of life?" rather than by "What would God have me do with my life?" It is self-will as opposed to God's will. It is the fear of man over the fear of God. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

If I had my life to live over, instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished ever moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle. ~ Erma Bombeck

I once met a traveler who told me he would live to see the end of time. He laid out all his vitamins before me and told me he slept seven hours every night, no more or less. All the life you want, he said. It's all within the palm of your hand now. He said he would outlast all the wars and all the diseases, long enough to remember everything, and long enough to forget everything. He'd be the last man still standing when the sun decides to collapse upon itself and history ends. He said he had found the safest place on earth, where he could stay until the gateway to the beyond opened before him. A thousand generations from today. I pictured him there, atop a remote and snowy mountain. The heavens opening and God congratulating him for his perseverance. Asking him to join Him and watch as the sun burns down to a dull orange cinder and everything around it breaks is orbit and goes tumbling tumbling away, everything that once seemed permanent pulled apart so effortlessly, like a ball of yarn. A life into divinity.
But I knew it was a lie. I've always known it was a lie. You can not hide from the world. It will find you. It always does. And now it has found me. My split second of immortality is over. All that's left now is the end, which is all any of us ever has. ~ Drew Magary

Let me tell you the truth: You are enough. You are more than enough. God made you, and God does not make junk. "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." (Ps. 139:13) You are not just a body; you are a body and a soul. You have an inmost being that does not come from your parents, from the physical DNA that they gave you, but from God Almighty who breathed life specially and intentionally into your very self. Not only did God create you, He continues to care for you and watch over you. "Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid." (Luke 12:7) ~ Leah Darrow

Someone is pounding on a door within you and hoping for an answer. They want to tell us the secret tale of ourselves. The stories we've never told.

Some African tribes believe if you were to tell someone your entire story the audience would actually become you. From then on, the only life the teller would have would be in and through the listener. Some believe this is the relationship between Jesus and his disciples.

How I wished for my story to be blemish free. How I wished to be a good-natured soul giving back to the world, regardless of how broken I was. In the end, it's those things we are willing to die to change that sculpt our story.

Some people open the floodgates of their minds and hearts so memories burst forth like water through a breached dam. Pieces of our lives can be found among the floating wreckage, and somewhere, the presence of God hovers over the surface of the deep.

Inside, I am treading, biding my time, waiting for the magic I thought I owned as a child. Many seek this enchantment. I sought my wife, daughter and the power to conjure hope. ~ Christopher Hawke

Intriguing isn't it? One day you are the king of your world. And the next day, you stand aside, watching it all burn. Ashes slipping out of your hand, you just stand and stare, your glassy gaze fixed on something no one else could see, no one else could know...

People will talk as people do talk. And they will walk over the ashes. And the ashes will dance in front of you, reminding you every second of what was and what might have been. And you will almost give in.

But my advice is, don't give in. Because one day, you will decide to turn the corner. Put it all behind you. Just stand strong and still as the great wind comes and takes all the ashes away with with it, leaving fresh air behind. Fresh for you to make a new world, a better world. ~ Aleena Yasin

May the day of my birth perish. May it turn to darkness. May God above not care about it. May no light shine on it. May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more. May a cloud settle over it. May blackness overwhelm it. May thick darkness seize it. May it not be included among the days of the year nor be entered in any of the months. May that night be barren. May no shout of joy be heard in it. May those who curse days curse that day. May its morning stars become dark. May it wait for daylight in vain and not see the first rays of dawn, for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes.
Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest.
Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul,
to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure, who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave?
For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water.What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil. ~ Anonymous

Waiting for God"


This morning I breathed in. It had rained
early and the sycamore leaves tapped
a few drops that remained, while waving
the air's memory back and forth
over the lawn and into our open
window. Then I breathed out.

This deliberate day eased
past the calendar and waited. Patiently
the sun instructed the shadows how to move;
it held them, guided their gradual defining.
In the great quiet I carried my life on,
in again, out again. ~ William Stafford

A woman's magazine quiz:
Question: You decide to do the dread deed and just as things are starting to get hot he comes, rolls over, and asks, "Was it good for you?"
You:
a. Say, "God, yes! That was the best seventeen seconds of my life"
b. Say, "Sure, as good as it gets for me with a man."
c. Put a Certs in your navel and say, "That's for you, Mr. Bunnyman. You can have it on your way back up, after the job is finished ~ Christopher Moore

Hullo," he said sleepily, rubbing a hand along his jaw.
He's here in my room, right in the middle of the afternoon. Great God, there's a boy in my bed in my room-
I came to life. "Get out!"
He yawned, a lazy yawn, a yawn that clearly indicated he had no intention of leaving. In the moody gray light his body seemed a mere suggestion against the covers, his hair a shaded smudge against the paler lines of his collar and face.
"But I've been waiting for you for over an hour up here, and bloody boring it's been, too. I've never known a girl who didn't keep even mildly wicked reading material hidden somewhere in her bedchamber. I've had to pass the time watching the spiders crawl across your ceiling."
Voices floated up from downstairs, a maids' conversation about rags and soapy water sounding horribly loud, and horribly close.
I shut the door as gently as I could and pressed my back against it, my mind racing. No lock, no bolt, no key, no way to keep them out if they decided to come up…
Armand shifted a bit, rearranging the pillows behind his shoulders.
I wet my lips. "If this is about the kiss-"
"No." He gave a slight shrug. "I mean, it wasn't meant to be. But if you'd like-"
"You can't be in here!"
"And yet, Eleanor, here I am. You know, I remember this room from when I used to live in the castle as a boy. It was a storage chamber, I believe. All the shabby, cast-off things tossed up here where no one had to look at them." He ~ Shana Abe

For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run-
How many makes the hour full complete,
How many hours brings about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times-
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;
So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will can;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates-
William Shakespeare

There is no better way to serve others than to pray for them. There is nothing about which I do not pray. I go over all my life in the presence of God. All my problems are solved there. ~ Samuel Chadwick

I thought about Mother's life, the part of it I knew. Going to work every day, first on the ferry then on the bus. Shopping at the old Red-and-White then at the new Safeway - new, fifteen years old! Going down to the Library one night a week, taking me with her, and we would come home on the bus with our load of books and a bag of grapes we bought at a Chinese place, for a treat. Wednesday afternoons too when my kids were small and I went over there to drink coffee and she rolled us cigarettes on that contraption she had. And I thought, all these things don't seem that much like life, when you're doing them, they're just what you do, how you fill up your days, and you think all the time something is going to crack open, and you'll find yourself, then you'll find yourself, in life. It's not even that you particularly want this to happen, this cracking open, youre comfortable enough the way things are, but you do expect it. Then you're dying, Mother is dying, and it's just the same plastic chairs and plastic plants and ordinary day outside with people getting groceries and what you've had is all there is, and going to the Library, just a thing like that, coming back up the hill on the bus with books and a bag of grapes seems now worth wanting, O god doesn't it, you'd break your heart wanting back there. ~ Alice Munro

She burst into tears. Not dainty, feminine tears, but a messy, red-faced explosion of sobs. The most terrible, beautiful, stunning feeling she'd ever known had come crashing over her in a huge wave, and she was drowning in it.
Gabriel stared at her with alarm, fumbling in his coat pocket for a handkerchief. "No, no... you weren't supposed to... my God, Pandora, don't do that. What is it?" He mopped at her face until she took the handkerchief from him and blew her nose, her shoulders shaking. Ashe continued to hover and ask worried questions, Phoebe left the piano and came to them.
Keeping Pandora folded deeply in his embrace, Gabriel cast a distracted glance at his sister. "I don't know what's wrong," he muttered.
Phoebe shook her head and reached up to ruffle his hair fondly. "Nothing's wrong, lunkhead. You came into her life like a lightning strike. Anyone would feel a bit scorched. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The whole experience reminded me of my own 'old lady' phase that I went through in high school while I was reading Somerset Maugham ... The embroidered sweaters, the costume jewelry ... I remember genuinely WANTING to be old then, to act as if the business of my life was already all but over, and that I was preternaturally wise because of it ...
God, the stupid things you'll do to try and meet boys ... ~ Chris Ware