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“You can do right and still have everything turn out wrong. I am not certain where we got the idea that was not so, given that the one we follow and call God did do everything right and ended up treated with gross injustice.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“When God’s work seems to call us to neglect marriage and home, solitude and study, we have traded masters.”
― Diane Langberg, Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church

“When I held my newborn children and grandchildren, I felt as though I was looking at a treasure box packed intentionally by God with gifts to bless his world. Opening those gifts has been one of the great joys of my life. Ignoring the gifts of God in any child, female or male, does great damage to the child. It also greatly impairs the function of the church, because those gifts are given by God for the good of the body of Christ and for the glory of God.”
― Diane Langberg, Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church

“In recent years I have begun to understand that the call of God on my life is a bit unusual. It is a clear call to enter into the fellowship of his sufferings. It is a call to weep with those who weep. We must not forget that we serve a God who weeps, for he never calls us to something we do not first find in him.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“As Christians we love words like forgiveness, redemption, and transformation. The use of such words does not make a transformed soul. Nor are such things accomplished by a few words, tears, and a little time.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“The bottom line is that you cannot tell if repentance is genuine for a long, long time. If you think you can you will have not only fooled yourself, but you will risk vulnerable people.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“Repentance is not verbal only. It is always demonstrated consistently in a life over time. And true repentance is a process that requires time and more time to be made evident. When humans are caught in sin, they will say anything to make it better, including using biblical language to keep life running normally, especially when there is a lot at stake. The self-deception of the one who is exposed works overtime in an attempt to deceive his/her questioners, who also have the capacity to be deceived and sometimes in considering the potential outcomes conclude that deception is the better alternative than messy, exposed truth.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“Scripture says our hearts are deceived in incomprehensible ways. So often the church is naïve about deception and its workings in our lives. That leads to “I’m sorry,â€� being a sufficient response to hideous abuse and stopping outward behavior a sure sign of repentance. Repentance means to have another mind about something. It is not merely words and tears and promises, but an intensely god-ward sorrow that results in lasting transformation exhibited repeatedly over time.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“No system—family, church, community, or institution—is truly God’s work unless it is full of truth and love. Toleration of sin, pretense, disease, crookedness, or deviation from the truth means the system is in fact not the work of God, no matter the words used to describe it. I fear we have a tendency to submit ourselves to some command or idea of men—of the past, of tradition, of a systemic culture—and in so doing refuse to listen to and obey the living and ever-present God.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“When we hear justifications, excuses, blaming, selfishness, or a focus on the sins of another, we can be sure we do not have true repentance.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“After a chronic illness is diagnosed, everyone comes around the sick person. But years later it is easy to forget or say surely it is not that bad; it must be in his head. But over time he will watch his life eroded by the disease as it eats away at his body and his capacities. He will struggle with depression. His grief will be relentless. He will grieve his inability to do what his heart longs to do. He may eventually go from a full-orbed life to a bed. If he takes medication, he will suffer from side effects that will debilitate him in additional ways. His sleep will suffer, he will endure pain, and the daily care of his body will absorb more and more of his energy. This could last for decades. What will such a man need from you? How will you handle all of his emotions? Can you allow him to grieve, weep, and ask questions? Can you endure with him what he has no choice to endure? You will get tired of his illness and his limitations—so will he. You can leave; he cannot. Many will leave or forget. Grief does not come in neat packages.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“If you have not accepted death or endings as a reality, your own included, the loss you are confronting in another will become a threat to you and you will react wrongly. I believe that one of the reasons we so often criticize another’s process or rush them along is because we have not yet really accepted the reality, the finality of trauma, endings, or death ourselves. We want to make it less of a threat, to minimize it, and so we end up minimizing the griever’s loss. Surely, it cannot be that bad.”
― Diane Langberg, Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores

“Sheep do not eat each other. Wolves eat sheep. Wolves look for isolated sheep, sheep on the fringe, sheep who are suffering. They look for someone who is not likely to speak out and someone easily overpowered.”
― Diane Langberg, When the Church Harms God's People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded

“Shepherds serve the sheep best when they serve the Master first.”
― Diane Langberg, When the Church Harms God's People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded

“Oswald Chambers teaches that repentance destroys the lust of self-vindication. Wherever that lust resides, repentance is not true.”
― Diane Langberg, When the Church Harms God's People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded

“Victims are often told they must forgive no matter what. But God does not forgive those who do not speak truth or who demand forgiveness. He is ready to forgive—and that readiness is hard to hold back—but forgiveness is not given until we seek him out, speak truth, and ask him for it.”
― Diane Langberg, When the Church Harms God's People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded

“The church is to be a place where sheep can safely graze. To fail the sheep is to fail our Lord.”
― Diane Langberg, When the Church Harms God's People: Becoming Faith Communities That Resist Abuse, Pursue Truth, and Care for the Wounded

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
― Maurice Switzer, Mrs. Goose, Her Book

“I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough..”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
― Helen Keller

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
― Mother Teresa

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
― Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette Married

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison