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“I love you," she sobbed, rubbing her hands over his face, his hair, his chest, making sure he was solid and real. "I love you, and I thought you were dead. I couldn't bear it. I thought I would die too."

"I'd walk through fire for you," he rasped, his voice hoarse and broken. "I have walked through fire for you.”
― Elizabeth Hoyt, Wicked Intentions

“I need my own armor, and soon. A silly queen I'll look when I've been slowly flattened into a man."

Mace grinned. "You wouldn't be the first queen of this kingdom to be mistaken for a king.”
― Erika Johansen, The Queen of the Tearling

“Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now

- Lazarus”
― David Bowie

“While gently pushing her towards the dressing room, Lazarus ventured, "Can I ask you something kind of personal?"

Pulling her shirt over her head behind the curtain, and holding her hand out for the corset, she replied, "Anything for you, Laz."

"How are you still friends with him?"

"Can you hook this thing?" Holding the corset on her stomach, Lazarus peeked through the curtain, fingers deftly snapping the twenty hook-and-eye latches. "He saved my life. There are a million reasons to hate him, but there are a million and one reasons to forgive him for his faults."

Twisting to look in the mirror, adjusting her breasts in the tight silk, she continued, "He'll say the worst thing at the worst possible time, except every once in awhile, he says the one most perfect thing that just makes you want to cry from happiness. He knows the exact way you need to be touched at any moment, in any mood, like he's fucking telepathic. He'll make you want to scream when he ignores you, but then you find out he knows your favorite color, your favorite meal, what movie makes you cry and he can list every little thing in the entire world that you hate. And mostly? Well," Turning to face Lazarus and strike a pose, "I just can't fucking stop.”
― Shannon Noelle Long, Second Coming

“Once upon a time there was a man with no heart. Drifting through black-and-white life, caring naught for those hurt, and never, ever allowing another near enough to hurt him. Until, on the least likely day, the most unlikely place, the man with no heart met the most surprising person. He was fearless. He was strength and power. He wore his heart boldly on his sleeve. The man with no heart began, shockingly, to feel a movement in his breast. A stretching, a slow, steady beat...”
― Shannon Noelle Long, Second Coming

“Many writers make the mistake of making their readers appear like Lazarus, without any iota of care, throwing down books to readers to crunch as if they are dogs.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Maybe I like that you're available."
Oh, the romance. Her voice as dry as dirt, she said, "How am I not throwing myself at you right this very second?"
"It's a definite mystery.”
― Gena Showalter, The Darkest Touch

“The metal door began to roll open as she held her breath. Its parts creaked like the bones of a giant roused from his slumber, like a Lazarus that had hidden his flaming heart within fireproof walls, patiently sleeping as the comatose do.

The smell hit her first. Mold. Dampness. Cold lifeless things.

Within, there was a darker sort of silence, as if the building had been holding its breath for so long it had forgotten how to breathe.”
― Angela Panayotopulos, The Wake Up

“Another version of the “Prosperity Gospelâ€� or “Name It and Claim Itâ€� teaching has to do with finding a verse in the Bible and then “claimingâ€� that verse. Proponents of this thinking believe that God must fulfill his promise to us in whatever verse we are “claimingâ€� because what God says in his Word, the Bible, is true, and we can trust it to be true.

So someone might pray: God, your Word says in Isaiah that by your stripes we are healed and I know you are not a liar and that your Word is true and I claim that Scripture in Jesus’s name and therefore I will be healed of this stomachache!

We need to have faith in what the Bible says, but we have to be careful that we aren’t trying to force God to do what we want. That is arrogance rather than humility.God loves us, but we cannot demand things of him as though our faith is in charge rather than God.

If someone believes it is our faith that heals us and forgets that it is God who does it, we should ask that person how much faith Lazarus had.

Remember, he was decomposing in a tomb when Jesus raised him from death. His faith obviously didn’t matter. It was all God. It is God and God’s grace that heals, not our prayers and not our “faith.â€� Though we are exhorted by God to pray to him, we cannot compel him to do what we wish.”
― Eric Metaxas, Miracles: What They Are, Why They Happen, and How They Can Change Your Life

“The gospel Jesus spreads in the book of Luke has as one of its main themes that Jesus brings a social revolution, in which the previous systems and hierarchies of clean and unclean, sinner and saved, and up and down don't mean what they used to. God is doing a new work through Jesus, calling all people to human solidarity. Everybody is a brother, a sister. Equals, children of the God who shows no favouritism.

To reject this new social order was to reject Jesus, the very movement of God in flesh and blood.”
― Rob Bell, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived

“Jesus Hollywood believed in a lot of things. He believed that stars were ghosts of family long since past and that he was more likely to die from an asteroid falling from the sky than another human being getting the better of him. He believed that children could see things when adults had already stopped believing.

Jesus Hollywood believed that you wrote your own story. He believed that anything could happen if you really set your mind to it. He believed that, in the end, everything would be ok; if it wasn't ok, it wasn't the end.

Jesus Hollywood believed that it wasn't really Jesus that raised Lazarus from the dead, but the other way around.

And Jesus Hollywood sure as fuck believed in love.”
― Shannon Noelle Long, Second Coming

“For those he has ignored, he allows them this. He allows them God, their only ally. Places to worship, but no one to teach.”
― Greg Rucka, Lazarus, Vol. 4: Poison

“We have our mission and we are going to complete it. So grab your straws and suck it the fuck up.”
― Greg Rucka, Lazarus, Vol. 4: Poison

“In death, we never much resemble who we were in life, for all the mystery is gone.”
― Richard Zimler

“Doubts are good; they are proof that our minds are sojourning in lands far from home.”
― Richard Zimler

“What have you taken from me, and from what have you taken me?”
― John Connolly, The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology

“What is it you do for your family? Aside from trying to put it in your sister, I mean?”
― Greg Rucka, Lazarus, Vol. 3: Conclave

“Pen will no longer be your close guard, Lady,â€� Mace said flatly.
“W³ó²¹³Ù?â€�
“Starting tonight, Elston will take over Pen’s duties.�
Kelsea turned to stare at Pen, who in turn stared at the floor.�
“What’s happened?� she demanded.
“I’ll give you two a few minutes, but only a few,� Mace replied, speaking to Pen. “After that, you will not be alone together again.�
Pen nodded, but Kelsea turned on Mace.
“You don’t make changes to my Guard behind my back, Lazarus! I didn’t ask for a new close guard. This isn’t your decision.�
“No, Lady,â€� Pen said. “It’s mine.”
― Erika Johansen

“A history made of 'ifs' - such is the life of mortal men" The Gospel According to Lzarus”
― Richard Zimler, The Gospel According to Lazarus

“How many of us never find a way to say the one thing we must?”
― Richard Zimler, The Gospel According to Lazarus

“Jesus is baffled by Tinder. He wants to love his matches, but is strictly celibate. The Holy Ghost does all of Jesusâ€� fucking for him. Apparently, Jesus calls his penis Lazarus because he has to raise it from the dead. It takes a miracle to get it up. Only torture porn gets him hard.”
― Adam Nostra, The Devil and Jesus Debate Tinder Strategies: How to Optimize Your Tinder Success

“There was definitely a cat and another animal, probably a rabbit, in the shed. Her suspicions were confirmed soon enough. Madeleine lit a candle, its light illuminating a wooden hutch where an enormous rabbit was nibbling at some freshly picked clover. In her lap, the little grey cat was all grown up; it was the same cat Madeleine had been holding on the balcony the day when one look from her teal-colored eyes had been enough to floor poor Solange. Holy pictures were pinned over the hutch: Saint Anne, the Miraculous Virgin of the Smile (who cured ten-year-old Thérèse), Saint Veronica holding her veil, and Saint Joan of Arc had all been carefully pinned in a row, looking down tenderly over the big orange rabbit who went on munching his clover. Pinned to the frame of the hutch was a piece of wax paper with the animal's name- Lazarus- written on it.
"His name's Lazarus," Madeleine whispered as she grabbed him by the ears.
Solange winced in pain.
"You have to pick them up by the ears or else you hurt them. I'll set him down on your lap."
Solange had never touched a living rabbit before. She stroked Lazarus, who right then seemed to her to be the gentlest, most charming thing to ever have walked this earth.”
― Éric Dupont, The American Fiancée

“Lazarus may have made a report when he returned. He must have written something, left something behind somewhere. It's inconceivable for someone to live through that experience and say nothing about it. But no doubt someone else tore it up, wiped it away, and blotted out those words, which were they discovered, would shake the very foundations of heaven and earth.”
― Najwa Barakat, Mister N

“Lazarus Saturday: The Longest Way by Stewart Stafford

"Lazarus, come out!" Jesus said:
A dead man awoke in a burial place,
Wrapped head to foot on a stretcher;
He shook away the cloth on his face.

Four days dead, his soul was gone;
His sisters berated Jesus's late arrival;
The Lord did not doubt his power,
From the afterlife came his survival.

From a white light end to a dark revival,
Life cascaded in decomposing flesh,
His chest hurt as it rose and fell again,
Bloated and blotchy skin alive afresh.

Lazarus struggled to breathe in dusty air;
His body was freezing and deathly pale;
At first, he thought he had gone to God,
The voice of his friend told another tale.

Shuffling stiffly to the cave's womb exit,
Newborn-blind to his second life;
The Disciples rushed to unwrap him,
His sisters embraced away their strife.

Lazarus wanted to tell what he had seen,
But was told it was not for mortal ears;
His sisters had to respect this wish,
Overjoyed to live to Methuselah's years.

The word spread fast of this act;
Of the Nazarene's immense power;
That his reach could extend so far,
To the world far past Babel's Tower.

As the daughter of Jairus resurrected,
Christ himself arose on the third day;
Lazarus was in Death's grip tightest,
Miracles that blood money cannot repay.

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford