Love Warrior (Oprah's Book Club): A Memoir

And when I need to work anything out, I turn to the blank page. There, no one can steal my pain or try to poison my knowing, and there I always have the final word in my own story.

I tell her that we need a church that will help us practice loving ourselves without shame, loving others without agenda, and loving God without fear.

She is referring to both of her selves: her hurt self and her representative, the one fit for public consumption.

My anger is the ocean. There are moments of calm and stillness and then, without warning, the disturbance begins beneath my skin, churning, gathering power until there is nothing I can do but surrender and ride it out.

But the still, small voice won’t allow it. The still, small voice insists that if I walk back in now, I’ll be rejecting the gift inside of this crisis. Crisis. Sift. This is an invitation to allow everything to fall away in order to be left holding what can never be taken. The invitation in this pain is the possibility of discovering who I really a

It is very important to this institution that she and I never know that there is a difference between leaving a man and leaving God. It needs us never to understand that there is a difference between submitting to God and submitting to patriarchy.

The booze numbs the pain but God insists on nothing short of healing. God deals only with truth and the truth will set you free, but it will hurt so badly first.

Let’s make this about Jody—because dealing with you right now is too much to handle.

“Yes. Like when you dance. Many of the things you see me do each day, I do to be beautiful. It’s why I take time out to spend with good friends. It’s why I read and look at art and always have music I love playing in the house. It’s why I light candles in every room. It’s why I watch you climb our banyan trees in the front yard. It’s why I roll aro