“Conversion is a continuous and lifelong process. Conversions proceed layer by layer, relationship by relationship, here a little, there a little—until the whole personality, intellect, feeling and will have been recreated by God” (By John Westerhoff in The Spiritual Life).

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“God comes to us not where we should have been if we had made all the right choices in life; not where we could have been if we had taken every opportunity that God has offered us; not where we wish we were if we didn’t have to be in the place where we find ourselves; not where we think we are because our minds are out of sync with our hearts; not where other people think we are or think we ought to be when they are attending to their own agendas. God meets us where we really are” (By Margaret Silf in Inner Compass).

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“To heal means to rediscover that divine idea, that place of wholeness, within each of us. Our task in recovery or in the spiritual journey is to peel away the layers between us and the deeper Self. We can use the image of a vast ocean that is barricaded away by a dam that keeps us from knowing it exists. Even though our intellect may learn there is an ocean, we cannot conceive of it because we have never directly experienced it. And then, for an instant, we transcend the barrier, and we see and feel the ocean directly. Once this has happened, we become strongly motivated to experience it again” (By Christina Grof in The Thirst for Wholeness).

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“There’s an old Carolina story I like about a country boy who had a great talent for carving beautiful dogs out of wood. Every day he sat on his porch whittling, letting the shavings fall around him. One day a visitor, greatly impressed, asked him the secret of his art. “I just take a block of wood and whittle off the parts that don’t look like a dog,” he replied. . . . In spiritual whittling, though, we don’t discard the shavings. Transformation happens not by rejecting these parts of ourselves but by gathering them up and integrating them. Through this process we reach a new wholeness. Spiritual whittling is an encounter with Mystery, waiting, the silence of inner places—all those things most folks no longer have time for” (By Sue Monk Kidd in When the Heart Waits).

“’I can be God:”  the Fall of humankind is found in believing this one lie.  Trace back every sin you can imagine, and you will find the thumb prints of the most destructive idea that the world has ever seen.  I listen closely to the lie when I attempt to micromanage my affairs and anyone risky enough to get close to me” ( Nathan Foster in Wisdom Chaser: Finding My Father at 14,000 Feet).