Quotes from Charles Martin

You believe in things you cannot see and speak a language that only hearts know.

If you're having trouble making a distinction between the voices in your head, let me put it this way: there are two sources of supernatural power on this earth. Jesus and satan. If what you're hearing does not come from Jesus, then by definition, it does come from satan.

Girls need their father. Period. And I couldn't really tell you why other than it's the father who tells them who they are. Until he does, they're just floating in the earth like that tooth. Buried in some trash mound. Waiting to be discovered by somebody with a shovel who won't crack it or crush it. [Murphy Shepherd]

But there… that night… that moment, it was the first time I'd ever been cut free.

Sin requires blood. I can't explain why. It just is. Somewhere in here, I came to grips with the beautiful, tender, magnificent, barbaric, soul-shattering, eternal, unequivocal reality that the birth, life, and death of this innocent boy and magnificent Man are simply my King's first step from throne to trough to cross to tomb to hell to God's right hand. As a result, I am blood bought. Blood washed. And blood redeemed.

See it?" ... "Yeah." ... "How in the world did you see that in the first place?" "Don't know." "It's hard to make out." "Give it about ten minutes..." So we waited. Trying not to look at it so much that it lost all meaning. Like a word you say over and over until you're only hearing what it sounds like and you've forgotten what it means.

So, the water that would cleanse me was not water from my head—where I'd learned to rationalize my indifference. But water from my heart.

My life has been real different than I thought. Ain't turned out how I hoped . . . nor dreamt. But I'm not the only man in the world to get screwed by life. Lots are worse off than me. That's life. You take the bad with the good. Rise up through it. Live in the midst of it. It's the bad that lets you know how good the good really is. Don't let the bad leave you thinking like there ain't no good. There is, and lots of it, too.

Saint Augustine said it best: You stir man to take pleasure in praising You, because You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.

Understand this until you have a boy of your own, but listen close. The sins of the father are carried down to the son. There's nothing you can do to stop what's passed to you. You are going to wrestle with it until the day you die, whether you like it or not. The only choice is whether or not you pass them to your son. Stopping it is a choice you make.

But time does heal. Not like we think it does, not like we would—from the front—but more from the back or side or someplace we can't see it coming. It bubbles up beneath and rises all around.

In my experience, it's those words on the tip of the tongue that we most need to hear. They are the key. The thing that's missing. But you can't pull them out. They have to be offered. Freely. And they won't be offered until the owner trusts you with them. And to do that means they've got to break through a world of hurt and pain just to get them out of their mouth. I caught my reflection in the mirror.