Your Papa is Especially Fond of You

okay... here are some of my favorite quotes from The Shack. Most (if not all) are God speaking. Let me know if any of these touch you, too. :)

• "The real underlying flaw in your life...is that you don't think that I am good. If you knew I was good and that everything -- the means, the ends, and all the processes of individual lives-- is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me. But you don't...Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. Because you do not now that I love you, you cannot trust me."
  
• "When all you can see is your pain, perhaps then you lose sight of me?"



• "Remember this, humans are not defined by their limitations, but by the intentions that I have for them..."



• "That is the wonder and adventure of exploration, a piece of what you call science -- to discern and discover what we have hidden for you to find....The choice to hide so many wonders from you is an act of love that is a gift inside the process of life."



• "But without wisdom, imagination is a cruel task master...do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?...To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe I am good nor know deep in your heart that I love you.



• "So many believe that it is love that grows, but it is the knowing that grows and love simply expands to contain it. Love is just the skin of knowing."



• "He chose the way of the cross where mercy triumphs over justice because of love."



• "Guilt'll never help you find freedom in me. The best it can do is make you try harder to conform to some ethic on the outside. I'm about the inside."



• "Faith does not grow in the house of certainty."



• "...religion is about having the right answers, and some of their answers are right. But I am about the process that takes you to the living answer."



• "To the degree that you resort to expectations and responsibilities, to that degree you neither know me nor trust me...to that degree you will live in fear."