23. With God, even when nothing is happening... something is happening.
I thank God for schools that are serious about the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are vital to perpetuating our faith through your generation and beyond.
Let me leave you with this thought, written by my father before he died. If you incorporate it into your system of values, it will serve as a worthy guide to the management of your sexual energy: Strong desire is like a river. As long as it flows within the banks of God’s will – be the current strong or weak – all is well. But when it overruns those boundaries and seeks its own channels, then disaster lurks in the rampage below.
I urge all parents, but especially fathers, to work at building your daughter’s self-concept throughout her childhood. Tell her she is pretty every chance you get. Hug her. Compliment her admirable traits. Build her confidence by giving her your time and attention. Defend her when she is struggling. And let her know that she has a place in your heart that is reserved only for her. She will never forget it.
I think people need to recognize that those of us who have been so much influenced by violence in the media- in particular pornographic violence- are not some kinds of inherent monsters. We are your sons, and we are your husbands. And we grew up in regular families.
I don’t want to die. I deserve, certainly, the most extreme punishment society has, and I think society deserves to be protected from me and from others like me. That’s the irony. What I’m talking about is going beyond retribution because there is no way in the world that killing me is going to restore those beautiful children to their parents and correct and soothe the pain.
Resist the temptation to see yourself as a victim.
Nothing in this physical world moves from disorder to order without intelligence and energy being applied to it.
Highs must be followed by lows.
Husbands and wives need to return regularly to the kinds of romantic activities that drew them together in the first place.
God Himself even “forgets” the wickedness committed by those whom He has forgiven. That’s why it is never too late to clean up your life.
When you strip away all the layers one by one, not much remains to “discover.” You will never find real meaning among your selfish interests, feelings, and aspirations. The answers do not lie within you.
Ask yourself what you will care about when everything is on the line.
He concluded in the last scene that we are given two choices in life. We can allow ourselves to love and care for others, which makes us vulnerable to their sickness, death, or rejection. Or we can protect ourselves by refusing to love. Lewis decided that it is better to feel and to suffer than to go through life isolated, insulated, and lonely.
Girls are under enormous pressures rarely experienced by their mothers, grandmothers, and other women in previous generations. Today’s little girls are being enticed to grow up too fast and are encountering challenges for which they are totally unprepared.
But we must understand that emotions are unreliable and at times, tyrannical. They should never be permitted to dominate us.
Meg MacKenzie who said raising her two sons is like living with a tornado.
Whenever you begin to conclude, “I can’t win,” and “What’s the use?” you’ve set yourself up for failure. Your pessimism becomes a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Whether right or wrong, it is my belief that Christian colleges place their emphasis not on that which divides us, but on the substance that binds us together. That commonality is the gospel of Jesus Christ. He commanded us to love one another – to set aside our differences and to care for “the least of these” among us. It is our unity, not our diversity, that deserves our allegiance.
Despite their depressing circumstances, the Hernandez family had a certain dignity and strength about them. They were Christians, and they taught their children that God loved them and had a plan for their lives. Their little boy, David, internalized that message of hope. He never thought of himself as a victim even though he had every reason to feel cheated. His family was at the bottom of the social ladder without even a house to live in, but his worth as an individual was rooted in his faith.
Even in that difficult hour when he knew death was imminent, he never indulged in self-pity. He knew intuitively that a person is only a victim if he accepts himself as one.