Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist

Such an amazing book. I've been so challenged and encouraged by reading this book. Thank you God for people who write in such amazing ways. Keep inspiring her because she's touching so many lives!

Here are a couple quotes/inserts from this fun book about celebration.

"Life with God at its core is about giving your life up to something bigger and more powerful. It's about saying at every turn that God knows better than we know, and that his Spirit will lead us in ways that we couldn't have predicted. I have known that, but I haven't lived that.
There is a loosey goosey feeling to the future now, both a slight edge of anxiety, like anything can happen, and a slight bubble of hope and freedom that, well, anything can happen.
There are moments when I feel, suddenly, lucky and thankful and shocked at how happy I am. I have called this the hardest season in my adult life, which it is, and it is not what I had planned in the least, but it is also a secretly beautiful, special season at the same time. It's hard because some relationships still feel broken, and because we have a lot less money, and because I am afraid, sometimes, about the future, but at the same time, I surprise myself with how okay it is and how okay I am with not knowing exactly what will come next." (206)

Ever feel like someone is writing about your life. This is one first books I came across that I've felt this way. Maybe it's the way she writes on such a personal level, it just speaks to my soul.

Life is good....

"I have to remind myself that it is good. I have to create hope in my life, because there's something inside me that has radar for the bad parts of life. I walk into the kitchen and all I can see are crumbs on the counter, and I look in the mirror and don't even see my face, I just see all the potential wrinkles forming. I have a dark, worst-case scenario sensor, and it takes over. It's all true. There are crumbs on the counter. I am definitely getting wrinkles. I just don't want to live in only that reality.
Because there is another reality. A better one. Hope and redemption and change are real, and they're happening all around me. So I choose to act out that reality, because the other one makes life too hard, day after day. Life is painful, and we carry with us so much disappointment and heartbreak. But I'm fighting to save some space inside me where I can create hope. I can't live there in the disappointment anymore. I've missed whole seasons of my life. I look back and all I remember is pain. I guess I went to work or to class during that time, but I don't really remember. I've wasted a lot of time wishing I was different. I didn't love the gift of life because I was too busy being angry about the life I was given. I wanted it to be different. But being angry didn't change those things. I just wasted time. I can't take away the things that have happened to you or to me, but what we have, maybe as a reward for getting through all the other days, is today. Today is a gift.
It's rebellious , in a way, to choose joy, to choose to dance, to choose to love your life. It's much easier and much more common to be miserable. But I choose to do what I can to create hope, to celebrate life, and the act of celebrating connects me back to that life I love. We could just live normal day-to-day lives, saving all the good living up for someday, but I think today, just plain today, is worth it." (234)