Jennifer Dukes Lee Quotes

The art of happy-making begins when we find our happiness within instead of without.

I am learning to set aside expectations, but I will not let go of hope.

In a world where you can choose to be anything, choose to be KIND.

He isn’t growing us into superstars; he’s growing us into servants. Growing Slow is a school of patience in which we are nurtured into spiritual maturity. Growing Slow is a daily choice to see where God is already working and then the conscious decision to join him there. Sometimes it’s heavy and it’s hard and the rain won’t let up for a second. But instead of running from the rain, you need to step right out in it, letting it wash your eyes so you aren’t blind to the beauty that’s still here. And it is. It’s still here.

Down through the centuries, the Savior has repeatedly lifted the fallen from the holes they've dug for themselves one shovel scoop at a time. After His grand rescue, the Redeemer does not always seal that hole shut behind us. He does not force us into relationship or bully us into repentance. Instead, He leaves us with a choice: follow Me or fall again.

You may need to let go of that deluded belief that if you worry about something enough, it will resolve itself.

People in Haiti eat dirt because it gives their starving bodies a false sense of satisfaction. But mud pies don't fill. They merely mask real hunger. [...] I saw the mud pies as a metaphor for the life of any Christian who has ever looked to something or someone other than God for fulfillment.

Some time ago, I committed a quote by Amy Carmichael to memory: “If the praise of man elates me and his blame depresses me; if I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself; if I love to be loved more than to love . . . then I know nothing of Calvary love.”1

God is with you in the spectacular, and he’s with you in the regular. There is dignity in both places.

Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. BRENNAN MANNING

Why do we live in this cycle of validation, swept up by the empty promises of the Love Idol, only to sink down when someone rejects us? We make frenetic jumps from island to island between tidal waves of insecurity. Beth Moore says culture has “thrown us under the bus. We have a fissure down the spine of our souls.”[22] We want to keep up appearances. We want to avoid criticism. We treat our lives like a stat sheet, trying to keep score the world’s way.

A scarcity mindset believes there will never be enough. A Growing Slow mindset trusts there will be more.

Sometimes, the only way out of a storm … is to go through it.

My prayer regimen is a small act of surrender, a practical way to deliberately pull my gaze from myself to my Savior — a lesson I learned years earlier on long car rides to news assignments but have now begun to put into daily practice. Eyes cannot look in two different directions. I want mine on Jesus — not on yesterday’s failures or successes, not on today’s agenda, and definitely not on the world’s scorecards.

Jesus' fathomless love changes how you and I will live in our moments, how we'll love in our neighborhoods, and what we'll be known for in eternity.