Chapter 10 - Holy Life

[Julie]

"...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6

I needed to read this tonight. That He who began a good work in me will see it through to completion.

Quotes from this chapter that struck me

"Here, in the silence, God shows us what is in our hearts and speaks his response. IN the silence we are stunned by what we hear. No fury, not condemnation, but God's voice declaring his love, compassion, mercy, and grace, and his promise to make us whole." (pg 180)

"One of the lessons I learned concerns receiving love. I must let people love me in their own way and in their own time" (pg 184)

"As we are healed by God's love, we are then able to accept love from others, freed from our expectations and demands that love come when we want it, in the exact form we want it, and from who we want it." (pg 184)

[ela]

Hi Julie,
I have made it to Chapter 10 of which I have read 4 pages, so far. I appreciate your sharing quotes that were meaningful to you. I will follow your lead and come back with some to share at another time.
Thanks so much for posting here on each chapter. This has been a book I may have stopped halfway through had it not been for the online group support AND the inspiration I got from each thread you started here in this section.

[Julie]

Ela - this book took me MONTHS to read! I so understand the stopping and starting again bit. The accountability of posting here is what kept me going - slowly - until I finished it. I've appreciated reading your posts and insights as you've gone through it! You are a blessing to me!

[ela]

Oh, the enemy has been distracting me from getting back here to share about how very awesome this chapter is. I am just inspired and uplifted by so much of it. I have read the entire chapter now (it is the shortest chapter--about 10 pages, I think, but it really packs a punch, like the introduction.) First there is the quote on the first page (179) by Thomas Merton: "If you dare to penetrate your own silence and dare to advance without fear into the solitude of your own heart, and seek the sharing of that solitude with the lonely other who seeks God though and with you, when you will truly receive the light and capacity to understand what is beyond words and beyond explanation because it is too close to be examined: it is the ultimate union, in the depths of your own heart, of God's spirit and your own secret inmost self, so that you and he are in truth one spirit. Now that is one power-packed run-on sentence! Every time I have read it, I have felt as if my mind was renewed. That quote is then followed with the scripture which ends with "man does not live by bread alone but on every word that come from the mouth of the Lord" (Deut. 8:2-3) I am simply blown away right from the start. These two quotes are tied in to the subject of the book in this way: "In our disordered eating, we have gone to the end of our tether trying to live life feeding off the false fruits of our addictive behaviors or the ways of the world. Ultimately, at the bottom of the miry pit, dispossessed, excuses and justifications failing us, we are humbled, silenced by the truth of our condition, and as we fall to our knees, God enfolds us in His faithful arms." (p.179-180)

Wow! I need to be re-reading this now and sharing about it here. I have certainly felt humbled today as one of the ways of the world... the lure of dieting... has crept back into my thinking like a thief in the night... and has been trying to build a fort in my thought. I have figuratively been on my knees all day, silently praying to God while meeting the demands of my job with a sense of being enfolded in God's faithful arms and being lifted out of the miry pit of obsessive thinking over and over again. I am thankful for every opportunity I have had today to come to the TW forums. This has been a safe haven during a mentally stormy day.
Work duty is calling again now... so I will stop here with an intention to come back and continue to post high lights from this chapter.

[ela]

I just re-read page 180 and so appreciate the quote "Silence is required for deep change to occur." This gets clearer to me all the time. Communing with the Lord in the silence is better than anything I have ever known. I pray to remember this when the world's noisy activities tempt me to indulge in transient, temporarily gratifying while never satisfying pleasures that cause me to miss out on opportunities to embrace precious moments of silence and stillness where "God shows us what is in our hearts and speaks his response."
Reading what is written about silence, God's love, etc. on this page has a soothing, peace-promoting effect on me.
Time for sleep now. More later.