Rather than feeling lost and unimportant and meaningless, set against galaxies which go beyond the reach of the furthest telescopes, I feel that my life has meaning. Perhaps I should feel insignificant, but instead I feel a soaring in my heart that the God who could create all this — and out of nothing — can still count the hairs of my head.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on finding personal significance and value despite the vastness of the universe.
Madeleine L'Engle's quote expresses a profound feeling of meaning and importance in one's life, contrasting the overwhelming scale of the universe with the intimate care of God. Instead of feeling lost and insignificant amidst the galaxies, she emphasizes a sense of personal connection and significance that comes from the belief that a divine presence values each individual, counting even the smallest details of their lives.
In practice
During a motivational talk about finding purpose in life.
Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.
He even knew the reason why: because enough men had gone off to war saying the time for gardening was when the war was over; whereas there must be men to stay behind and keep gardening alive, or at least the idea of gardening; because once that cord was broken, the earth would grow hard and forget her children. That was why.
We're all worth the same_x000D_ When we turn off the light.
Even when you err, it is a thousand times better to err out of conviction than to hide your true opinion to respect some authority.
The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
Say what you want about it, Hell is story-friendly... The mechanisms of hell are nicely attuned to the mechanisms of narrative. Not so the pleasures of Paradise. Paradise is not a story. It's about what happens when the stories are over.
What I'm concerned with is what I would call the missing history - the invisible imprint of our stay on Earth and in time.
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