Wingate Quotes & Sayings

But the love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse. — Lisa Wingate

Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you've done will have mattered as much. — Lisa Wingate

What the mind don't 'member, the heart still know. Love, the strongest thang of all. Stronger than all the rest. — Lisa Wingate

The important thing isn't proving you can achieve a goal, but living every moment along the way, even the side trips — Lisa Wingate

The truth was, I yearned, in a soul-deep way, to be Sarra. To 'feel' that God was so very close, so very concerned with my particular life, so very ready to protect and to love. Always nearby. Always listening. Always leading. — Lisa Wingate

To my grandmothers,
for tilling the soil in which we grew and for watering our roots with stories of all the old things — Lisa Wingate

Sometimes we must try to view the actions of those around us with forgiveness. We must realize that they are going on the only road they can see. Sometimes we cannot raise our chins and see eye to eye, so we must bow our heads and have faith in one another. — Lisa Wingate

no matter how many wrong choices we've made in the past, we can always decide to make the right ones today. The past need not determine one moment of the future. The — Lisa Wingate

The hardest thing about the road not taken is that you never know where it might have led. — Lisa Wingate

Everything you want waits on the other side of fear. — Lisa Wingate

Maybe grace was all around me, bubbling through, passing under my feet, and I'd never seen it because I'd never tried to see. — Lisa Wingate

Sometimes a world that doesn't exist is the only escape from the one that does. — Lisa Wingate

I desire to live my life this way, ... Not caged by the walls of fear, but in anticipation of the bridges to magnificence.
Help me find the way. — Lisa Wingate

The upscale neighborhoods in Blue Sky Hill weren't all lily white anymore, but you could be sure their kids didn't wear our kind of clothes, or get free lunches at the Summer Kitchen, or pick up used books and magazines down at the Book Basket store, or go to the public school. These days it wasn't about what color you were, but how much money you had. The same, only different. It was still people not wanting to be with people who weren't their kind. — Lisa Wingate

It's an odd thing when your children start telling you what to do." "I — Lisa Wingate

...setting out together in a marriage is a lot like setting out on the river. Some parts will be rough; some will be smooth. You can't see from the start where it's gonna travel and where it's gonna end up. Sometimes it'll turn a sharp corner; sometimes it'll drift along awhile. Thing is, no matter what the river does, both parties gotta paddle equally, see? — Lisa Wingate

My life was like that box. The best things in all the imperfections. — Lisa Wingate

There was no other place I loved so well as this one."
"Me as well,"... For all the places I've loved, there have been none like this. This place is a deeper love, a sisterhood of water and sand and soul. A place where you fill me through my eyes and my ears, Father. — Lisa Wingate

The little box that was given to me was by no means unique. I'd heard of prayer boxes, and I knew what they were for.
... Any scrap of paper will do, anywhere, anytime of the day or night. The important part, in a world of fractured thoughts, hurried moments, and scattershot prayers, is to take the time to think through, to write down, to clarify in your own mind the things you're asking for, the things you're grateful for, the things your're troubled about, the hopes you've been nurturing.
And then?
Put them in the box and ...
Let. Them. Go.
That's what trust is. It's letting go of the worry. It's the way of peace and also the way of God. such a hard road to travel for people like me, who are worriers. When I'm writing a story, I control the whole universe. In life ... not so much. Actually, not at all. Things happen that I hadn't anticipated and wouldn't choose and can't change. That's the tough part. — Lisa Wingate

Things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and that's not the kind of heart I want to have. — Lisa Wingate

Sooner or later, the future always circles back to the past. — Lisa Wingate

Help them to show the world that our greatness is not in things we do for ourselves, but in things we do for others. — Lisa Wingate

My mama used to say the blues is an ailment that don't like no sunshine in the room. — Lisa Wingate

She lays her tired head on my shoulder and looks through the shell with me, into the great mystery. I think again that heaven must be like this place, and I say that to Isabelle. I wonder, When she is in heaven and I am not, how far away will she be? "It's just another journey," she whispers. . . I thought of my mother, of how desperately I wanted her to be here a little longer, a lot longer, forever. Sometimes it seemed that I should be able to change things, to alter the course of events, just by wanting it badly enough. But I couldn't. Iola's observations said as much. We, in our humanness, cannot help but foolishly desire eternity in this life. — Lisa Wingate

How often ... do we pass by a need, a life that could be changed with the smallest bit of effort? And it's not that we don't care but that we're driving so fast, all we see are the fence posts flashing by on the side of the highway?
Maybe the first step in changing the world is in slowing down and looking through the fences. — Lisa Wingate

Decision you make in life has benefits and consequences. Sometimes you just have to go on faith, and even that comes at a price. It means you have to give up the idea that you're the one in charge of the universe. — Lisa Wingate

Sisters are created not by blood but by love. — Lisa Wingate

I understood now that all of us have that place inside that wants to be part of something, that needs the comfort and companionship of loved ones. Within each of us, there is an empty room, and when we open the door, light flows in. The wider we open it, and the longer we leave it open, the brighter our souls become. — Lisa Wingate

I learned that life can change in an instant. It can flip over like a box of Styrofoam peanuts, and you're left scrambling to gather enough insulation to survive, before it all blows away. After that, you sink down into what's left, like a fragile glass vase with a crack in it, trying to avoid further damage.

One bold year is worth a dozen timid ones.... — Lisa Wingate

Some things just are, because they are. Because God made them that way. — Lisa Wingate

Life is a process of storms and rebuilding, of fires and regrowth, of loss and gain. — Lisa Wingate

God is a good horseman. He waits while we circle the fences of our lives - whatever they are, whether it be a bad childhood, or a destructive habit, family problems, an addiction, a personal tragedy, an inability to forgive someone else or to allow ourselves to ask forgiveness, or believe we deserve it. The Good Horseman waits, and each time we turn and look at Him, He stretches out His hand, slow and quiet, until finally, sooner or later, we reach for it, and we come to the center with Him, and find that peace was waiting there all along. — Lisa Wingate

Prayers are answered in ways we don't choose. The river of grace bubbles up in unexpected places. — Lisa Wingate

My mama used to say if you frown on the outside long enough, eventually you'll grow a frown on the inside, too. — Lisa Wingate

The depth of my love for him, of my need for him poured over me, both painful and sweet, both comforting and frightening. If anything happened to him, I didn't know how I would keep going. — Lisa Wingate

Somewhere, deep within me, beyond the passion, beyond the beauty of the night, that little spark of Daily magic ignited in me again, began burning in a place that had gone dark and untended, that had yearned to be bright and warm. I felt it now, something old, something new, something complete. Perhaps it had been in there in me all along, the belief that there is a plan and a purpose, that God whispers into every life, some things that are beyond the scope of the mind, and can only be felt with the heart and the spirit.
Those dreams, the dreams that are dreamed *for* us, not by us, are the truest of all. — Lisa Wingate

Eventually, you must stop running to something or from something and embrace where you are. Otherwise you'll never embrace anything. — Lisa Wingate

All of life is quilted from the scraps of what once was and is no more- the places we have been, the memories we have made, the people we have known, that which has been long loved but has grown threadbare over time and can be worn no longer. We keep only pieces. All colors, all shapes, all sizes.
"All waiting to be stitched into the pattern only you can see. — Lisa Wingate

Like the beach glass, the wood was more beautiful because of its journey, because of the things it had been through.

Inside the perfect shells is dim,
It's through the cracks, the light comes in. — Lisa Wingate

For just a moment, I thought about it. I pictured how it would be, dusting off the rusty Romance Lindsey, long hidden in some box in the back closet of my mind, under piles of more important boxes filled with Work Lindsey, and Mommy Lindsey, Divorce Court Lindsey, and now Shared Custody Lindsey, and Depressed Insane Lindsey.
Was Romance Lindsey even there anymore? Probably not. She had sat forgotten for so long that, like the Skin Horse and the Velveteen Rabbit, she had ceased to be real. I never even thought about her anymore. Until now. Which was a bad sign that the boxes were getting jumbled up and Control Freak Lindsey needed to get to work.
...
He grinned wickedly, and my stomach fluttered like a firecracker the instant the chain reaction starts inside the casing. Romance Lindsey and Tomboy Lindsey grabbed Mommy Lindsey, shoved her into a box, and sat down on the lid. Control Freak Lindsey ran away screaming. — Lisa Wingate

Sometimes it ain't the drunk or the sinner who needs a shovel across the rear, it's the ones who could quote you chapter and verse about grace, but don't hand it out. — Lisa Wingate

No matter how much you want to cut your family out of your heart, you can't. The bond is born when you are born, like an organ in your body. There is no surgery to remove it. When it is diseased, you live with a dull ache telling you that something inside you is not right. — Lisa Wingate

The trouble with drowning in the mess of your own life is that you're not in any shape to save anyone else. You can't be a lighthouse when you're underwater yourself. — Lisa Wingate

When I'm with him, I feel like a completely different person. I like the way this person feels. And then I wonder - is this the person I really am?
How can you know for certain what parts of yourself are authentic and what parts you've invented to make life bearable? — Lisa Wingate

We can never really know, except in hindsight, how prayers will be answered. — Lisa Wingate

I think of an old sermon my grandfather quoted from time to time - something about not looking back when you're plowing a field, but instead finding a mark in the distance and focusing on that. Otherwise, the rows won't come out straight. — Lisa Wingate

We are His children, each knit together as we should be. We must go by the name our Father has given us. Beloved. — Lisa Wingate

Be patient, Katie. Everything doesn't have to work itself out today. — Lisa Wingate

One of the best things a father can do for his daughter is let her know that she has met his expectations. My father did that for me, and no amount of effort on my part can fully repay the debt. I'd do anything for him, and for my mother. Now — Lisa Wingate

A bad past is like gristle. You can chew on it forever and starve yourself to death, or you can spit it out and see what else is on the table. — Lisa Wingate

What we cannot change we must endure without bitterness. — Lisa Wingate

But sometimes it's the things that require a leap of faith that we need to believe in most of all. — Lisa Wingate

I began to see the magic of Jocelyn's horse psychology school. You couldn't put on airs with a horse, as we so often do with people. Horses look through the masks we wear and the things we say. They see who we really are. They gauge our intentions in a thousand invisible ways that have nothing to do with the words we say. They shy away from the barriers of fear, self-centeredness, jealousy, anger, impatience. They are drawn in by kindness, understanding, concern, openness, love.

The thing is, so are people. — Lisa Wingate

But is life a success when it doesn't include time for after-school talks, and curling up to read books on winter nights, and weaving daisy chains in the summer? Is it a success when you have all the big things but none of the small ones? Is it as it should be when everybody grows up and moves to opposite coasts and doesn't care if they ever see each other? — Lisa Wingate

Normal doesn't happen overnight when the world around and between you has always been off-balance. — Lisa Wingate

Who are you, really? The question penetrated, echoed, demanded an answer. It nipped at me in ways I wasn't prepared for, pinched in places I didn't like. Was I really so entrenched in the world I'd been raised in, so set in my ways that I couldn't look beyond the surface of another person and see a human being? Was I that shallow? — Lisa Wingate

The embryo of my second novel, Bobby's Diner, came to life because of my husband's ex-wives. Let's just say, they inspired the writing. — Susan Wingate

Generally, crises were Mom's domain. Dad's job was to listen, nod, act curmudgeonly, and offer to pay for things. — Lisa Wingate

I never did try to make my daddy understand why I left for the army the way I did. I just thought, because he loved me, he should let it go, and if he couldn't, well then he didn't love me like I thought. Young folks get love and understandin' backward, don't they? Love don't come galloping across fresh pastures like a fine white horse with understandin' riding soft and easy on its back. Understandin' plods in like an old plow mule, breaking sod. It shades the earth with its body, and waters it with sweat. Love grows up in the furrow that's left behind. It takes some patience. I was an impatient young man. ~Claude Fisher — Lisa Wingate

That's how the grievin' becomes after a time. You've tossed off the black blanket, but scraps of it fall on you unexpected, your life always a quilt with a dark patch or two. The Good Lord uses those to show off the bright colors, I think. — Lisa Wingate

No way out but through the storm now. — Lisa Wingate

Joy, I realized, isn't so much a circumstance you find yourself in but a choice you make. — Lisa Wingate

I don't want someone who's just with me until things get a little too difficult, or something better comes along, or marriage isn't as much fun as it used to be. I want the real thing-for better or worse, rich, poor, sickness, health, forever and ever, amen. — Lisa Wingate

People don't come into our lives by accident. — Lisa Wingate

The storms come and it's water and wind as far as the eye can see for a bit. But winds calm and the waters drain. We find our feet again, and the ground under us sprouts a new crop of seed. That is always the way of it. I don't suppose this storm will be any different. — Lisa Wingate

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. — Lisa Wingate

Some of the hardest things you go through will teach you the most. — Lisa Wingate

I wrote about the rush of love, the changing of a woman into a mother - a process that happened without conscious thought, as if the heart knew what the mind and body took time to learn. Love is the one thing that matters. That makes everything else matter. That makes everything worthwhile. — Lisa Wingate

The journey itself was the architect of the wood. The interior would never be fully dark because the struggle had cracked it, providing an avenue for the light. — Lisa Wingate

Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn't suit the moment. — Lisa Wingate

How can God allow such abominations to flourish unchecked in this world?
The answer came in a question, Ruby.
God, in reply, asked, "How can you? — Lisa Wingate

Those dreams that find you in the quiet of yourself, those are the truest of all, — Lisa Wingate

All the best things in life start with a risk. — Lisa Wingate

Hardship finds its way into every life. It's just much easier to see our own than other people's. Hannah — Lisa Wingate

Fear builds walls instead of bridges. I want a life of bridges, not walls. — Lisa Wingate

The choral group. I have even begun to master the organ, not so different from Monsieur's piano. I strained to hear the whisper, as Sister Agnes went on with her thought. The audiences prefer children who are young, too young to be out working for themselves. It pleases them to feel as though they're donating to — Lisa Wingate

To love and be loved is the very thing our souls scream for from birth and every moment after, the urge to need and be needed as natural as breathing, as life-giving as breath. — Lisa Wingate

She bear-hugged me in a way that performed some sort of chiropractic miracle, because when she set me down, the tightness in my back was gone and I was an inch taller. — Lisa Wingate

After all, what good is a life saved if you fail to live it? — Lisa Wingate

I've finally come to fully understand that you can't fix another person. You can't fix the past. You can only change your way of reacting to it. — Lisa Wingate

Oh, child. The best thing is to know. I always tell 'em, best to be who you is. What you is deep down inside. Ain't no other good way of livin'. — Lisa Wingate

The satisfaction I feel from finishing another story is tantamount to, say, crossing the finish line for the career marathoner. — Susan Wingate

I never thought to ask her name, Father, but you know the little mulberry girl as you know each sparrow of the field. You are the white berry that removes the stain. — Lisa Wingate

We do not choose the vessel we're given, Iola Anne, but we choose what we pour out and what we keep inside, she say. — Lisa Wingate

Other people's judgment doesn't have any power unless you offer yourself up for trial, so don't. Zoey — Lisa Wingate

[When asked about Writing Conferences]
You meet people that will change your life. — Susan Wingate

You are a God of winds and tides. Of journeys and storms and navigation by stars and faith. — Lisa Wingate

If Satan has toeholds that allow him to claw and climb from the underworld to this one, they lie in our failure to see ourselves in others. — Lisa Wingate

Holding a worn Bible, he read from Paul's letter to the Corinthians about the true nature of love - what it is, and what it is not. It is not boastful, not proud, not self-seeking, not easily angered. It does not hold a grudge. It is patient and kind. It protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres, and never fails, even when we turn away from it.
Love believes, and believes, and believes, even when it has been disappointed, and wounded, and thwarted by the weaknesses of the human soul. — Lisa Wingate

Women are interesting characters. Their very nature breeds mystery. — Susan Wingate

The justice hearing thereof (whose name is Mr Francis Wingate), forthwith issued out his warrant to take me, and bring me before him, and in the meantime to keep a very strong watch about the house where the meeting should be kept, as if we that were to meet together in that place did intend to do some fearful business, to the destruction of the country; when alas! the constable, when he came in, found us only with our Bibles in our hands, ready to speak and hear the word of God; for we were just about to begin our exercise. Nay, we had begun in prayer for the blessing of God upon our opportunity, intending to have preached the word of the Lord unto them there present: but the constable coming in prevented us. — John Bunyan

In those moments, I'd known that something new was being formed in me, too, created so gently that I hadn't even realized it until that evening by the shore. — Lisa Wingate

you can't impact something you don't touch. — Lisa Wingate

I wanted to write it on paper and fold it up in a box to remind myself, the next time I couldn't see anything but mountains ahead, that where there's a mountain, there's always a river flowing nearby. Ultimately the river is the more powerful of the two. — Lisa Wingate

Father, help these young people to see. Help them to show the world that our greatness is not in things we do for ourselves, but in things we do for others. In power that channels itself into kindness, in a hand outstretched in love. Be with these determined students. Help them to believe, when the naysayers come, that you make all things possible. "'And, — Lisa Wingate

The shadow of the highest evil intermingled with the light of the highest good. Maybe all lives are filled with this. Maybe it is always a choice between embracing the darkness of one or the saving grace of the other. — Lisa Wingate

All things pass, suga' pea. All the things a this worl' got a time for bornin' and time for dyin', and a time for troublin' and a time for restin'. Ssshhh — Lisa Wingate

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. Along our journey, people and events flow into us, and we are created of everywhere and everyone we have passed. Each event, each person, changes us in some way. Even in times of drought we are still moving and growing, but 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. These are painful times, but they enable us to carry burdens we could never have thought possible. — Lisa Wingate

Wingate sighs thoughtfully. "Hard to say. He's not static. He began with almost pure Impressionism, which is dead. Anyone can do it. But the vision was there. Between the fifth and twelfth paintings, he began to evolve something much more fascinating. Are you familiar with the Nabis?"
The what?"
Nabis. It means 'prophets.' Bonnard, Denis, Vuillard?"
What I know about art wouldn't fill a postcard."
Don't blame yourself. That's the American educational system. They simply don't teach it. Not unless you beg for it. Not even in university. — Greg Iles

You let a possibility into your mind, you let it into your life. — Lisa Wingate