Waiting

"Our Willingness to wait reveals the value we place on the object we're waiting for."
Charles Stanley

Peace

"There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itselft the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God, not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won, not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross."

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

C. S. Lewis

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

Loving God

"How do you love God?
Start by loving your neighbor.
How do you love your neighbor?
Start by loving God."

The most loving thing you can do for a loved one is to love God and seek Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

“I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.”

“In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts…”

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr. He was a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plans by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler. This led to his arrest in April 1943 and execution by hanging in April 1945, 23 days before the Nazis' surrender. He authored many books including "The Cost of Discipleship".

Amy Carmichael

"All along, let us remember, we are not asked to understand, but simply to obey…. On July 28, Saturday, I sailed. We had to come on board on Friday night, and just as the tender (a small boat) where were the dear friends who had come to say goodbye was moving off, and the chill of loneliness shivered through me, like a warm love-clasp came the long-loved lines–’And only Heaven is better than to walk with Christ at midnight, over moonless seas.’ I couldn’t feel frightened then. Praise Him for the moonless seas–all the better the opportunity for proving Him to be indeed the El Shaddai, ‘the God who is Enough.”‘

~Amy Carmichael

Amy Beatrice (a.k.a. Wilson) Carmichael (December 16, 1867–January 18, 1951) was a Protestant Christian missionary in India, who opened an orphanage and founded a mission in Dohnavur. Hindu temple children were young girls dedicated to the gods and forced into prostitution to earn money for the priests. Much of her work was with young ladies, some of whom were saved from forced prostitution. She served in India for fifty-six years without furlough and authored many books about the missionary work.
While serving in India, Amy received a letter from a young lady who was considering life as a missionary. She asked Amy, "What is missionary life like?" Amy wrote back saying simply,
“ "Missionary life is simply a chance to die."

A Problem With Social Justice

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.

-Abraham Lincoln

Love

"Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned."
Song of Solomon 8:6-7


Alright, a little confession. On December 26,2010, a very wonderful man asked me to marry him. So the above quote is special in more than one way. :)

Govenor William Bradford

From my years young in days of youth,
God did make known to me his truth,
And call'd me from my native place
For to enjoy the means of grace.
In wilderness he did me guide,
And in strange lands for me provide.
In fears and wants, though weal and woe,
A pilgrim, past I to and fro:
Oft left of them whom I did trust;
How vain it is to rest on dust!
A man of sorrows I have been,
And many changes I have seen.
Wars, wants, peace, plenty, have I known;
And some advanc'd, others thrown down.
The humble poor, cheeful and glad;
Rich, discontent, sower and sad:
When fears and sorrows have been mixt,
Consolations came betwixt.
Faint not, poor soul, in God still trust,
Fear not the things thou suffer must;
For, whom he loves he doth castise,
And then all tears wipes from their eyes.
Farewell, dear children, whom I love,
Your better Father is above:
When I am gone, he can supply;
To him I leave you when I die.
Fear him in truth, walk in his ways,
And he will bless you all your days.
My days are spent, old age is come,
My strength it fails, my glass near run:
Now I will wait, when work is done,
Until my happy change shall come,
When from my labours I shall rest,
With Christ above for to be blest.

God & Country

"Whatever makes men good Christan's, makes them good citizens."
-Daniel Webster -Founding Father




The reason that Christianity is the best friend of Government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart."
-Thomas Jefferson -Author of the Declaration Independence.

"The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests."
-Andrew Jackson -7th U.S.President

"Men must choose to be governed by God, or condemn themselves to be ruled by tyrants."
-William Penn -Founder of Philadelphia, PA

"Every thinking man, when he thinks, realizes that the teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure ourselves what that life would be if these standards were removed. We would lose almost all the standards by which we now judge both public and private morals, all the standards towards which we, with more or less resolution, strive to raise ourselves."
-Theodore Roosevelt -26th U.S President

"It can not be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ! We shall not fight alone. God presides over the destines of nations. The battle is not to the strong alone. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, ALMIGHTY GOD! Give me liberty or give me death!"
-Patrick Henry -Founding Father

Martin Luther

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I
may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is
proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

A. W. Tozer

“We may as well face it: the whole level of spirituality among us is low. We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone… (We) have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the joy of the Lord and produced a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost.”



Aiden Wilson Tozer (April 21, 1897 - May 12, 1963) was an American Christian pastor, preacher, author, magazine editor, Bible conference speaker, and spiritual mentor. For his work, he received two honorary doctorate degrees.
A few of the books that Tozer wrote include Let My People Go, Man the Dwelling Place of God, Paths to Power, The Divine Conquest, The Pursuit of God, and Knowledge Of The Holy

Puppet

Puppet,
Poor Puppet,
Who's pulling your strings?
Puppets can't answer.
Puppets just swing;
Puppets just hang there
Docile and sweet,
Kill on command
And riot in the street.
Puppet,
Poor Puppet,
Who's pulling your strings?

Ruth Bell Graham

Victor Hugo

Be like the bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.


It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

The flesh is the surface of the unknown.

Nothing discernable to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidible, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.

Victor-Marie Hugo, 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885, was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France.
His best-known works are the novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris; known in English also as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

Henry Ford

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it."

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was the American founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production.

Francis Schaeffer

"No man can live without a worldview; therefore, there is no man who is not a philospher."

On Loving Others

"As I go through life I don't want to merely pass by people...I want to pass through them."





"People are God's greatest creation, invest in them"

"I have never met a person God didn't love and that I should love too."

"To the world you may be one person but to one person you may be the world."

"And I will be my brother's keeper, Not the one who judges him
I won't despise him for his weakness,I won't regard him for his strength
I won't take away his freedom, I will help him learn to stand
And I will, I will be my brother's keeper." Brother's Keeper, Rich Mullins

"Loving a person just the way they are, it's no small thing
It takes some time to see things through.
Sometimes things change, sometimes we're waiting.
We need grace either way." Loving a Person, Sara Groves

Jane Austen-Pride and Prejudice

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
~Chapter 1

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment." Chapter 6

"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. --Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do."
-Mr Bennet, Chapter 20

“I shall not say that you are mistaken,” he replied, “because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own.” ~Mr. Darcy, Chapter 31


Jane Austen (16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction set among the gentry have earned her a place as one of the most widely read and most beloved writers in English literature.[1] Amongst scholars and critics, Austen's realism and biting social commentary have cemented her historical importance as a writer. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.

Joni

"There are more important things in life than walking." ~The God I Love


In a diving accident in 1967 Joni Eareckson Tada was left hospitalized and paralyzed from the neck down.

Charles Dickens

"It a far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known."
~A Tale of Two Cities





Charles John Huffam Dickens, 7 February 1812–9 June 1870, was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era, and one of the most popular of all time, responsible for some of English literature's most iconic characters. Some of his notable works include Sketches by Boz, The Old Curiosity Shop, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol, Martin Chuzzlewit, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, Hard Times, Our Mutual Friend, The Pickwick Papers.