A Quote by Sue Thoele

True friends see who we really are, hear our words and the feelings behind them, hold us in the safe harbor of their embrace, and accept us as we are. Good friends mirror our best back to us, forgive us our worst, and believe we will evolve into wise, wacky, and wonderful old people. Dear friends give us their undivided attention, encourage us to laugh, and entice us into silliness. And we do the same for them. A true friend gives us the courage to be ourselves because he or she is with us always and in all ways. In the safety of such friendships, our hearts can fully open.
True friends don't hold us back spiritually or pull us down when we're trying to rise and progress. True friends protect us. True friends help us be better than we would be on our own.
We need to build our friendships on truth and wholeness. We need friends who can be with us in our loneliness, not people who will cheer us up so that we don’t feel it. We need friends who get furious with us when we are not being real or true to ourselves, not when we don’t do what they want us to do.
We see ourselves in other people’s eyes. It’s the nature of the human race; we are a species of reflection, hungry for it in every facet of our existence. Maybe that’s why vampires seem so monstrous to us—they cast no reflection. Parents, if they’re good ones, reflect the wonder of our existence and the success we can become. Friends, well chosen, show us pretty pictures of ourselves, and encourage us to grow into them. The Beast shows us the very worst in ourselves and makes us know it’s true .
A blessed thing it is to have a friend; one human soul whom we can trust utterly; who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults; who will speak the honest truth to us, while the world flatters us to our face, and laughs at us behind our back; who will give us counsel and reproof in a day of prosperity and self-conceit; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in days of difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight our own battle as we can.
Let us dig our gardens and not be elsewhere; Let us take long walks in the open air... Let us bathe in the rivers and lakes... Let us indulge in games... Let us be more simple: simple and true in our gestures, in our words, and simple and true in our minds above all. Let us be ourselves.
Friends are an indispensable part of a meaningful life. They are the ones who share our burdens and multiply our blessings. A true friend sticks by us in our joys and sorrows. In good times and bad, we need friends who will pray for us, listen to us, and lend a comforting hand and an understanding ear when needed.
Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.
Friends, companions, lovers, are those who treat us in terms of our unlimited worth to ourselves. They are closest to us who best understand what life means to us, who feel for us as we feel for ourselves, who are bound to us in triumph and disaster, who break the spell of our loneliness.
Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky.
Our bodies need regular washing because we get dirty everyday. But so do our hearts! Because each day, people hurt us, offend us, forget us, snub us, step on us, reject us. But if we choose to forgive everyone everyday, we cleanse our hearts! We wake up the next morning refreshed and pure and lovely!
Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety, and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temparate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.
The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise . . . but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us - for good and for ill. It is our stories that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, that represents us at our best, and at our most creative.
As we live our human lives, let us be like the water. Let us be conscious of the flow. Let us not forget the great ground of being that draws us on through life. Let us live in a knowing hope, aware that all being is in transition, that all movement is back to the source. Let us treat those around us as reminders of our illusionary individuality. We know that they are us and we are them connected in ways we cannot fathom. Let us grow in compassion for all beings, for they share our journey.
Our true friends are those who are with us when the good things happen. They cheer us on and are pleased by our triumphs. False friends only appear at difficult times, with their sad, supportive faces, when, in fact, our suffering is serving to console them for their miserable lives.
Our Father awaits us with great zeal and desire, and with love He will see us returning from afar, and He will look upon us with compassionate eyes, and we shall be dear to Him, and He will fall on our neck running and embrace us and kiss us with His Holy Love. He will not reproach us, and He will no longer remember our sins and iniquities, and all the holy angles and all His elect will begin to rejoice over us.
Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This conflict with difficulty makes us acquainted with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.
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