Quotes from Peter Scazzero

In short order, here are the top ten symptoms of emotionally unhealthy spirituality: Using God to run from God Ignoring anger, sadness, and fear Dying to the wrong things Denying the impact of the past on the present Dividing life into "secular" and "sacred" compartments Doing for God instead of being with God Spiritualizing away conflict Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure Living without limits Judging other people's spiritual journey

Christian faith: emotional health and spiritual maturity are inseparable.

Looking to the past illumines the present. But make no mistake about it; it is painful. Because so few people do the hard work of going back in order to go forward, the symptoms of a disconnected spirituality are everywhere. The compartmentalization of our spirituality from the rest of our lives becomes necessary because there is so little integration.

To feel is to be human. To minimize or deny what we feel is a distortion of what it means to be image bearers of God. To the degree that we are unable to express our emotions, we remain impaired in our ability to love God, others, and ourselves well.

Sadly, some of our misguided Christian beliefs and expectations have, as Thomas Merton wrote, "merely deadened our humanity, instead of setting it free to develop richly, in all its capacities, under the influence of grace.

Maturity in life is when someone is living joyfully within their God-given limits.

It never seems like enough. We consistently feel inferior. Many of us know the experience of being approved for what we do. Few of us know the experience of being loved for being just who we are.

She asked for clay and started to make models and sculptures. She

Scripture Reading: Mark 3:31—35 Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother.

God's plans and purposes for us are good, even when our circumstances are far from good.

It is always true to some extent that we make our images of God. It is even truer that our image of God makes us. Eventually we become like the God we image. One of the most beautiful fruits of knowing the God of Jesus is a compassionate attitude towards ourselves. . . . This is why Scripture attaches such importance to knowing God. Healing our image of God heals our image of ourselves.12

Emotions are the language of the soul. They are the cry that gives the heart a voice.