A Severe Mercy (Sheldon Vanauken)

“The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians- when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths. But, though it is just to condemn some Christians for these things, perhaps, after all, it is not just, though very easy to condemn Christianity itself for them. Indeed, there are impressive indications that the positive quality of joy is in Christianity- and possibly nowhere else. If that were certain, it would be proof of a very high order.”

Lewis to Vanauken: “…if we were a species that didn’t normally eat, weren’t designed to eat, would we feel hungry? You say the materialist universe is ‘ugly’. I wonder how you discovered that! If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don’t feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. (‘How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!’) In heaven’s name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something in us which is not temporal.”

“…a choice was necessary: and there is no certainty. One can only choose a side. So I- I now choose my side: I choose beauty; I choose what I love. But choosing to believe is believing. It’s all I can do: choose. I confess my doubts and ask my Lord Christ to enter my life. I do not know God is, I do but say: Be it unto me according to Thy will. I do not affirm that I am without doubt, I do but ask for help, having chosen, to overcome it. I do but say: Lord, I believe- help Thou mine unbelief.”

Stronger Than You Think (Kim Gaines Eckert)

One of the worst things about pain and hurt is that it leaves us hopeless. We fear that we will never be loved in the way we long to feel loved-the way God has created us to be loved. We fear we will never be able to love someone else the way we were made to love. We worry that the pain will never go away, and that we will always hurt the way we do now. We feel utterly alone, like there is no one who fully understands our pain. To find hope is to open our eyes and look for a reason to live. Even when those reasons seem slim and are hard to find, we look for them! We look for the kind of hope Job spoke of after facing innumerable sufferings and calling out to God in the mist of them, "Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him" (Job 13:15). Hope that things can get better. Hope that we will be loved. Hope that we will be able to love again. Hope that we can be happy. Hope that we can trust others and not be punished for doing so.


Brokenness reminds me that I cannot make it on my own...too often it is only in the face of failure or loss that I am reminded of my complete and utter need for God. Brokenness forces me to give up the fantasy that I am in control, and makes me acknowledge the truth of God's sovereignty and place my Faith in his goodness- even when my life feels like its falling apart.

Bue Like Jazz (Donald Miller)

*I don't think you can explain how Christian faith works either. It is a mystery. And I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul.

*I think the things we want most in life, the things we think will set us free, are not the things we need.

*Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon.

*What people believe is important. What people believe is more important than how they look, what their skills are, or their degree of passion. Passion about nothing is like pouring gasoline in a car without wheels. It isn't going to lead anybody anywhere.

*Andrew would say that dying for something is easy because it is associated with glory. Living for something extends beyond fashion, glory, or recognition. We live for what we believe, Andrew would say.

*If loving other people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a bit of hell, and to that degree, here on earth, we decide in which state we would like to live.

"Surprised by Joy" (C.S. Lewis)

I was at this time living, like so many Athiests or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating the world. How far was this pessimism, this desire not to have been, sincere?...It is true that when a pessimist's life is threatened he behaves like other men; his impulse to preserve life is stronger than his judgement that life is not worth preserving. But how does this prove that the judgment was insincere or even erroneous? A man's judgment that whisky is bad for him is not invalidated by the fact that when the bottle is at hand he finds desire stronger than reason and succumbs. Having once tasted life, we are subjected to the impulse of self-preservation. Life, in other words, is as habit-forming as cocaine. What then? If I still held creation to be "a great injustice" I should hold that this impulse to retain life aggravates the injustice. If it is bad to be forced to drink the potion, how does it mend matters that the potion turns out to be an addiction drug? Pessimism cannot be answered so.



....That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me...I gave in, admitted God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The prodigal son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggliing, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance 0f escape? The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.

"Captivating" (Jonh & Stasi Eldredge)

As echo's of the trinity, we remember something. Made in the image of a perfect relationship, we are relational to the core of our beings and filled with a desire for transcendent purpose. We long to be an irreplaceable part of a shared adventure.

God has set eternity in our hearts. The longing to be beautiful in set there as well.

It is better for a woman who expresses beauty simply in who she is, in her essence.

Then the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Shame...feeding on our deepest fear: that we will end up abandoned and alone.