Ten Quotes to Illumine Your Way
by Susan Tate

When my son Zack was 18, I vividly remember a poignant conversation with him while we were sitting on the deck at our home in Virginia. He slipped his arm around my shoulders and said, “Mom, I’m a lot smarter than you are . . . but you are a lot wiser than I am.” Well, I had to agree with him! I also noticed he was gathering quite a bit of wisdom of his own.

Our wisdom doesn’t come to us overnight. It comes to us through the highest of joys and the deepest of grief; it comes through loving and leaving and yearning and learning. It comes through our exploration of faith and life and love and loss. Each one of our experiences is woven into a personal collection of wisdom that creates an intricate, ever-expanding tapestry of our life.

As a nourishing gift to you this holiday season—and especially as the light is returning to our days—I’d like to share ten quotes or sayings with you that have provided light, guidance, and wisdom along my life’s path. And if you’d like to read more about how to implement them into your own life, look for the second edition of my book: Wellness Wisdom: 31 Ways to Nourish Your Mind, Body, & Spirit, available in bookstores and online in January!

Today I do affirm that I am Divinely guided . . . There is that within which knows what to do and how to do it, and it compels me to act on what it knows.
~Ernest Holmes

What you think about expands.
~Unknown

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
~1 Corinthians 13:13

Make your decisions based on love, not fear.
~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

If the only prayer you ever say in your life is ‘thank you’, that would suffice.
~Meister Eckhart

Un-forgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
~Unknown

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
~Kahlil Gibran

If anything is sacred, the body is sacred.
~Walt Whitman

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
~Marianne Williamson

What do you have for me to do today God? How can I be of service?
~Unknown