The only basis of peace is the cessation of the conflict of two wills: my will vs God’s.
By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.
A little quiet reflection will remind me that yes to God always leads in the end to joy.
A grandmother’s special calling is to pray and to be a fellow worker in the battle in which her children or her grandchildren are engaged.
Faith’s most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain.
We never know what God has up His sleeve. You never know what might happen; you only know what you have to do now.
Christ is sufficient. We do not need “support groups” for each and every separate tribulation. The most widely divergent sorrows may all be taken to the foot of the same old rugged cross and find there cleansing, peace, and joy.
Virginity is something that can be offered to God.
The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the Church. And the wife is there to bless and support and help him.
I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts. Its easy to talk oneself into a decision that has no permanence – easier sometimes than to wait patiently.
If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily “ours” but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinguish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes.
My heart was saying, “Lord, take away this longing, or give me that for which I long.” The Lord was answering, “I must teach you to long for something better.
It is today for which we are responsible. God still owns tomorrow.
A great many things determine how people live, and money is not at the top of the list. Choices are always available. What you choose will depend on how you see things: yourself, your work, your right to express taste and desire and personality, your understanding of the love of God as expressed in His creation and order and harmony.
The gate is narrow but not the life. The gate opens out into largeness of life.
Some of God’s greatest mercies are in his refusals. He says no in order that he may, in some way we cannot imagine, say yes.
God will never disappoint us. He loves us and has only one purpose for us : holiness, which in His kingdom equals joy.
Insistence that both lead means there won’t be any dance.
The preoccupations of seventeen-year-old girls – their looks, their clothes, their social life – do not change very much from generation to generation. But in every generation there seem to be a few who make other choices. Amy was one of the few.
If your faith rests in your idea of how God is supposed to answer your prayers, your idea of heaven here on earth or pie in the sky or whatever, then that kind of faith is very shaky and is bound to be demolished when the storms of life hit it. But if your faith rests on the character of Him who is the eternal I AM, then that kind of faith is rugged and will endure.