“...now that I am a mother, I understand what Mother's Day is about: it's about looking through our lives and recognizing the act of mothering everywhere we see it, and more than that, recognizing that when any of us mother--when we listen, nurture, nourish, protect--we're doing sacred work.” 
(Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way)

We do not have to have health restored in order to have hope. We do not have to cling desperately to life in this world when we see life in relationship to the world to come. This life is not all that there is. More awaits us, and prayer makes it possible for us to catch a glimpse of eternal life. Prayer becomes a means of grace that enables us to loosen our hold on time so we can put our hands on eternity. 
(~Steve Harper, Talking in the Dark)

"Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”

(~Leo Tolstoy)

“He was tall as a young tree, lithe, immensely strong, able swiftly to draw a great war-bow and shoot down a Nazgûl, endowed with the tremendous vitality of Elvish bodies, so hard and resistant to hurt that he went only in light shoes over rock or through snow, the most tireless of all the Fellowship.” 

(~J.R.R. Tolkien)

Ash-Man's favorite!

"The more deeply you walk with Christ, the hungrier you get for Christ . . . the more homesick you get for heaven . . . the more you want "all the fullness of God" . . . the more you want to be done with sin . . . the more you want the Bridegroom to come again . . . the more you want the Church revived and purified with the beauty of Jesus . . . the more you want a great awakening to God's reality in the cities . . . the more you want to see pain relieved and tears wiped away and death destroyed . . . the more you long for every wrong to be made right and the justice and grace of God to fill the earth like the waters cover the sea." 

(~John Piper)

Yes. Oh, yes.

“There is a sacredness in tears. 

They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. 

They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. 

They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, 

     of deep contrition 

     and of unspeakable love.”

(~Washington Irving)

The sacred ground of tears leaves no room for words today.

"Don't be ashamed to weep; 'tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.” 

(~ Brian Jacques, Taggerung)

Kimberly Alden Smith. August 30, 1973 - November 8, 2012