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Quote by Tammy L. Gray

“Like Louie, I’ve been yelling and yelling, trying to get God to see how disappointed I am with this life He forced on me. How afraid I am to trust Him again. And He’s been patiently waiting, pushing me past boundaries, asking me to be vulnerable, testing me with new challenges, all to help me see that His way is better and perfect and it’s okay that it doesn’t always make sense.”

Quote by Tammy L. Gray

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Love and the Silver Lining

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Tammy L. Gray

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“She stands at the hairpin turn on Night Road. On either side of her, giant evergreens grow clustered together, rising high into the blue summer sky. Even now, in midday, this stubbled, winding ribbon of asphalt holds the morning mist close. This road is like her life; knee deep in shadow. Once, it had been the quickest way home and she’d taken it easily, turning onto its potholed surface without a second thought, rarely noticing how the earth dropped away on either edge. Her mind had been on other things back then, on the miniutae of everyday life. Chores. Errands. Schedules. She hadn’t taken this route in years. Just the thought of it had been enough to make her turn the steering wheel too sharply; better to go off the road than to find herself here. Or so she’d thought until today. People on the island still talk about what happened in the summer of ’04. They sit on barstools and in porch swings and spout opinions, half truths, making judgments that aren’t theirs to make. They think a few columns in a newspaper give them the facts they need. But the facts are hardly what matter. If anyone sees her here, just standing on this lonely roadside in a gathering mist, it will all come up again. Like her, they’ll remember that night, so long ago, when the rain turned to ash….”

“The lying was killing me! But I have high pain tolerance, especially self- inflicted pain. As I nearly emptied the bottle, I swore I saw Satan in the shadows of the darkened room. His voice dripped with sarcasm as he taunted me. “Congratulations on your diaconal ordination, Stephen.”

“I’d taken my vow of celibacy six months ago, and, strangely enough, today, I wouldn’t be asked to lie out loud again. But deep down in my conscience, that place where I hadn’t spent enough quality time, I knew I was an imposter.”

“As a young child, I realized that if I presented myself as perfect—caring, generous, understanding, and compliant— then I could control how people felt about me. At all costs, I wanted to be loved! I’d created a fantasy persona, but even now, I couldn’t recognize how far I had strayed from my self-imposed standard of perfection. I guess that’s what happens to a person when they receive too much praise. Was I as wonderful as everyone painted me? Or was I a skilled con artist? I had been riding the superiority- inferiority seesaw all weekend. As I grappled with a carousel of gnawing thoughts, I drank my third shot of scotch and snorted some blow, all to crush any self-doubt.”