“The world told you that you had to hide your pain, to be small and quiet, so you wouldn't rock the boat. And you believed. Then one day you saw the silent pain in the eyes of a small and quiet girl in a boat bound for nowhere. And a warrior awoke. You freed the girl from the silent shackles and told her that her story mattered, to tell it deep and wide and loud, to set the boat ablaze with every fierce and fiery word so all the world could hear and heal. And you believed.” WorldPainSufferingGirlSilenceStrengthFeministFeminine Author:L.R. Knost
“Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and the awful, it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful.” LifeBeautifulSufferingLivingHeartbreakOrdinaryAmazingBreathtaking Author:L.R. Knost
“Healing is not a straight and narrow road that leads from darkness to light. There's no sudden epiphany to take us from despair to serenity, no orchestrated steps to move us from hurting to healed. Healing is a winding mountain road with steep climbs and sudden descents, breathtaking views and breath-stealing drop-offs, dark tunnels and blinding exposures, dead ends and endless backtracks, rest stops and break downs, sheer rock walls and panoramic vistas. Healing is a journey with no destination, because healing is the journey of every lifetime.” LifeInspirational QuotesSufferingHealingJourneyHuman Author:L.R. Knost
“Pain patterns are vicious cycles, unconsciously passed from generation to generation in deeply entrenched behavioral and relational paradigms. They cannot be changed from the outside, only from within. Fear gives way to comfort, pain to healing, anger to peace, despair to hope, only when the heart of a person or the soul of a people feel safe enough to emerge from the hardened shell of self-preservation and become open to new possibilities. A hurting humanity cannot be healed by force, by arguing, shaming, threatening, manipulating. Those merely feed the pain patterns and harden their protective shells. Love, acceptance, empathy, compassion, those are the gentle rain that blossoms hurt into healing, transforming pain patterns into the peaceful flowering of a healthy, heart-whole humanity.” LoveLifePainSufferingHumanityHealingCompassionEmpathyInhumanity Author:L.R. Knost
“And just when the darkness became too much to bear and the struggle too hard, the light broke through and the caterpillar emerged a butterfly delicate but unbroken, wild and gentle, finally free to spread its lovely wings and fly away on the wind.” LifeSufferingBeautyTransformationButterflyFreeRenewalWild Author:L.R. Knost
“Peacemakers who challenge the prevailing concept of peace achieved by violence are often, ironically, called disturbers of the peace. That is only true if peace is defined as an uneasy ceasefire in a world dominated by the corrupt, a tenuous subjugation of the weak by the powerful, a hurting humanity suffering silently en mass for the profit of the bloated few. If, though, peace is defined as freedom, equality, safety, health, opportunity, and a voice for all, then we, the peacemakers, aren't disturbers of the peace. We are purveyors of peace because we are disturbers of the status quo.” Inspirational QuotesSufferingHumanityPeacePowerfulInequalityStatus QuoPeacemakers Author:L.R. Knost
“She is fragile as the morning dew melting in the warmth of a child's smile; stirring at the lonely, lovely waft of a butterfly's wings; tender as the curve of a wildflower petal. She is fierce as a summer storm now raging against the fiery sky; now raining tears to soothe the sun-scorched earth. She is soft as a midnight breeze swaying to the sound of waves breaking on distant shores; whispering comfort to a world steeped in the dark night of inhumanity. She is brilliant as the rising Phoenix lifting the suffering from the ashes; her own suffering woven into wings of fire in the long watches of the night. She is serene and turbulent as the silvered water hiding currents unknown beneath the gentle gaze of a human who has walked a thousand miles and still has more to go.” LifeInspirational QuotesSufferingHumanityFemaleWomanSerenity Author:L.R. Knost
“Life doesn't always get better. But you do. You get stronger. You get wiser. You get softer. With tattered wings you rise. And the world watches in wonder at the breathless beauty of a human who survived life.” LifePainSufferingHurtBeautyHumanWingsSurvive Author:L.R. Knost
“Pieces of who I was shattered reassembled into who I am; Shards shaping into prisms casting arcs of soul-fire into who I will be; I am a kaleidoscope of all the versions of myself I was and am and will become.” LifePainSufferingHurtPiecesHumanBecome Author:L.R. Knost
“The only way to heal from the pain of the past is to walk through that pain in the present. It's terrifying, I know. It feels safer to just let the pain continue to smolder in the darkest parts of yourself. But the dark parts need tending, too, my friend. Don't be afraid to breathe life back into those embers of old pain, to rekindle the fires of unhealed hurts. The flames aren't there to burn you. They are there to light your way through pain to healing. You can walk through courageous and confident or shaking in your boots. It doesn't matter. Just walk through it. Hurt will transform into hope, wounds into wisdom, suffering into scars that tell of battles won and lost and of a human who survived it all.” LifePainInspirational QuotesSufferingHopeHurtLivingHumanForgiveSurvive Author:L.R. Knost
“Forgiveness isn't telling someone it was okay to hurt you. It's telling yourself it’s okay to stop hurting. It doesn’t mean you have to trust them again. It means you can learn to trust yourself again. It doesn’t mean you have to give them a free pass back into your life. It means you are free to take your life back again. Forgiveness is simply emptying your past of its power to empty your present of its peace.” LifePainInspirational QuotesSufferingHopePeaceHurtHealingForgiveness Author:L.R. Knost
“Here's to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world. They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible. Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go. Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world. Be the hero you are looking for. Peace is possible. It begins with us.” WorldLightSufferingHumanityHopeCommunityHumanInhumanityBridge Author:L.R. Knost
“Sometimes life hurts. We suffer. We heal. We move on. But sometimes life hits back. Harder. Lethal in its cruelty. Shattering us into a million glittering shards of pain and loss and anguish. And we suffer, too broken to heal, to become what we once were. So we learn to live with the shards of pain and loss and anguish forever embedded in our souls, and with shaking fingers we piece together the bloody fragments of who we were into a mosaic grotesque in its stark reality, exquisite in its sharp-edged story of the tragic, breathless beauty of a human who survived life. And we move on, often unaware of the light glittering behind us showing others the way through the darkness.” LifeLightPainSufferingHumanityHealingDarkness Author:L.R. Knost