Tending Roses Quotes
"Indian wisdom says our lives are rivers. We are born somewhere small and quiet and we move toward a place we cannot see, but only imagine."
"Each event, each person, changes us in some way."
"It is during seasons of rain that we expand the most—when water flows from all directions, sweeping at terrifying speed, chasing against rocks, spilling over boundaries."
"Floods are painful, but they are necessary. They keep us clear and strong."
"In a perfect world, babies are born healthy, and medical bills don’t snowball into the tens of thousands of dollars."
"But those of us who aren’t perfect do the best we can."
"I never imagined how I would feel when we turned the corner to the house."
"I had never seen her let herself drift off like that before."
"The Lord gives us what we need, but we have to do our part."
"The man who buys what he does not need will often need what he cannot buy."
"I wish I had not spent my hours worrying over another nickel for the carousel, but instead running barefoot through the fields of yellow bonnets."
"Motherhood leaves no time for selfish pleasures. Only time for tending others."
"The best times of my life, the times that passed by me the most quickly, were the times when the roses grew wild."
"The same road always leads to the same place. If we get on it expecting to go somewhere different, we'll be disappointed."
"What we cannot change, we must endure without bitterness."
"It takes time to turn a heart, and it cannot be done with hard words."
"Sometimes we cannot raise our chins and see eye to eye, so we must bow our heads and have faith in one another."
"Raising children is an occupation of self-sacrifice."
"I knew our journey would end someplace wonderful."
"My heart was filled with guilt for the burdens I had brought by coming to our marriage penniless."
"The truth was, we really didn’t know each other at all."
"Men are selfish creatures. Sometimes it takes a little while for them to adjust to the demands of fatherhood."
"Everything doesn’t have to work itself out today."
"You are a child of God and a beautiful gift to this world."
"God knows you, child. He is mindful of every bird in the air, and every fish in the sea, and every flower that blooms in the field."
"Your Father in heaven made every strand of hair on your head and every ounce of flesh on your bones."
"You are perfect, and beautiful, and just the way you are intended to be."
"Poverty and ignorance still existed, and cruelty was the house they lived in."
"Time gets by so fast. It seems like I was Dell’s age just yesterday."
"We cannot change where God has put us. If we are to bloom at all, we must bloom where we have been planted."
"Time is a limited and precious gift. I wish I had not spent my hours worrying over another nickel for the carousel, but instead running through the fields of yellow bonnets."
"Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands."
"When you are old, nothing else you’ve done will have mattered as much."
"It was a moment I knew would live with me forever."
"Leaning against the doorway, I hugged my arms around myself."
"That night I went to sleep knowing that Ben and I and Joshua would not repeat old patterns."
"I imagined I could hear their hearts beating close together—one slow, one quick, like a sparrow’s."
"Pride and resentment do not create bread that will rise."
"Bread, like a good life, can only be created by honest measure, patience, warmth, and time."
"We must realize that they are going on the only road they can see."
"Sometimes we must try to view the actions of those around us with forgiveness."
"Everything looked fine with you two. You were healthy and smart."
"It doesn’t take very many lopsided flowerpots before you give up trying and go your own way."
"The secret to a happy life is not in getting what you want. It is in learning to want what you get."
"Don’t waste your time crying over what you’re not given. When you have tears in your eyes, you can’t see all the beautiful things around you."
"The truth to a happy life is not in getting what you want. It is in learning to want what you get."
"Grandma’s rules usually applied to everyone but her."
"Aren’t they beautiful? I didn’t know there were any left."
"Each of us was seeing fireflies for the very first time."
"I thought about Grandma’s hands touching his face and about how much her fingers had trembled."
"The air around us was silent, as if the farm were holding its breath."
"You tend it. Tend my roses. Tend the family."
"It was being filled with new lives, which was as it should be."
"The light around me dimmed slowly as another day surrendered its grasp on the land."
"Below I heard the music of the river passing by, and above the hush of new maple leaves rustling against the sky."