Anxious Andy Quotes

None of us had been in love, not really, until now. Anything we had called love came back to us as mockery in the face of this sudden flight from reason. Andy had said he was in love with Missy, and it was a shame Missy was not in love with him. A daily lament rose from him like the steam of the heat from the pipes at school. Andy’s mother hit the counter with her fist. “They’re too young,” she said, talking about Natalie and Dion, and we knew she was talking about their tongues running along the inside of each other’s teeth and the suddenly anxious too-tight grip of her hand between his legs, and the taste of each other’s skin, and the smell of each other’s bodies, and the feel of him slipping inside her and her settling down over him, the shape of her mouth, the shape of his. She was talking about their bodies but thinking about the words they had used. Everyone knew. “Love,” she finally growled, as if the creature itself had risen from her dreams to take over her kitchen. She gripped a package of spaghetti as if it was a club and stared at the wall, paralyzed by the idea of them out there.

In Hell, there is a lot of waiting. You wait to be tortured, you wait to be screamed at and sometimes you wait just to wait, all the while still feeling that anxious annoyance that people feel when waiting in line at the DMV.

My lady?” He came inside just in time to catch her as her legs collapsed. “Kat!” He looked at her anxiously. “Are you all right? I could feel your pain and distress—it worried me.” Kat smiled at him weakly. “Just the same old thing. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.” She sighed. “Where’s Deep?” Lock’s handsome features tightened. “I don’t know and I don’t care to know.” “What? So you two really are fighting?” she asked as he carried her back to the bedroom and laid her gently on the bed. “It goes beyond that.” Lock stripped off his shirt and climbed into the bed beside her. Kat sighed in relief when she felt his warm hand on her arm. She didn’t even protest when he pulled her blouse gently over her head, leaving her bare from the top up except for her bra. “We should call him, even if you are fighting,” she said as Lock pulled her close, pressing his broad chest to her back. “Don’t want to hurt you.” “The pain is nothing,” Lock assured her gently. “It’s more than worth it to be near you, my lady. Especially when…” His voice faltered for a moment. “When I’m going to lose you so soon.” “Oh, Lock…” Kat could feel his sorrow welling up, a sense of loss so great it nearly smothered her with its intensity. Still, she didn’t draw back or try to get away. Instead, she turned in his arms so she was facing him and drew him into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into his shoulder. “So sorry.” “So am I.” It sounded like Lock might be crying. His large form shook against hers and Kat held him tighter, wishing she could comfort him better. “I love you, Kat,” he whispered brokenly. “And the idea of being torn apart from you tomorrow—of losing what little bond we have between us—it feels like death to me. Like the end of everything.” “I love you too,” Kat admitted. “And…I feel like I could love Deep. If only he would let me. If only he wanted me to.” Lock stiffened in her arms. “He won’t. He doesn’t. There’s no point in even considering it. No hope.” A low growl rose in his throat. “Gods, I wish I wasn’t tied to him.” “Don’t say that,” Kat said softly. “You’re brothers—twins. You ought to be close.” “How can I want to be close to him when he’s killing the only relationship that ever mattered to me?

So here’s how you spot a false gospel: • If it makes you anxious or afraid, it’s another gospel. • If it leaves you feeling exhausted or burned out or guilty, it’s some other gospel. If it insists that in order to be a good Christian you must belong to this political party, you must not support that candidate, you should have this interpretation of Scripture for that issue, and/or you ought to abstain from these critical theories, it’s a different gospel. If it’s about your behavior rather than Christ’s, if it’s about your need to believe in anything other than his saving work for you, it’s not the gospel. And—I say this for all the mainline preachers eavesdropping—if what you are preaching can be true without requiring the shed blood of Jesus Christ for sinners, it’s no gospel at all.

Most folks greet confusion with surrender. Most people, when they don’t know what to do, do nothing. The average person meets an obstacle and tells himself, "This is not for me," or "I am not the kind of person who does things like this." Average people respond to confusion in an average way. They stop. But people who achieve extraordinary results think differently. They understand something very significant about confusion. Confusion precedes learning. The anxious thoughts that seem so puzzling or discouraging are actually your very gateway to understanding. Only by persistently doing battle with the things you cannot yet do or that which you do not yet understand can you ever hope to achieve what average people never accomplish. A sign of a person’s maturity is his ability to live with — even in — confusion. The average person meets the edge of confusion and turns away. He runs from confusion at its beginning, at its first appearance. He will not live with or even near confusion and seeks an easier path. The mature person—the high achiever — will understand that life’s grand prizes are guarded by confusion. The mature person senses the victory that exists beyond confusion and says, "I cannot do this... yet. I am not good at this yet, but I will work and learn and become better until I am competent, then excellent, then great! I will struggle and persist through confusion until I break through to the understanding or greater skill required for victory." It's a thought process. It opens up new possibilities for almost everything. The whole concept of "confusion before learning" means that confusion guards the answers we seek. You've got to be willing to enter into and do battle with the confusion in order to reach the victory on the other side... to take your life in a new and incredible direction.

pattern had developed where she was becoming increasingly anxious about not sleeping, which itself was causing her not to sleep.