My heart is so fragile, that I gradually begin to believe that my heart is lost in a field of thorns and darkness, with no directions and only one way out. Left with no more than faith, and trust, and one common goal. To find an everlasting love, that can destroy all obstacles I endure, and be the light that helps me through the darkness.

People love for so many different reasons. Some love you for only what you can do for them. Others love you for how much money you have or various material things. Love is sometimes tossed around like throwing a bone to a dog. And, some people have love confused with lust or infatuation. Those are both temporary and artificial, not genuine.

Why God should want and need us is a mystery. But it is true: otherwise he would not have created us and life would ultimately have no meaning for us. It is good to remember that in God the is a constancy, a consistency of attitude which never changes, irrespective of what we are or how we act: he never changes in is wanting us or needing us.

Someone has said,”Education is going from an unconscious to conscious awareness of one’s ignorance.”..No one has a corner on wisdom. All the name-dropping in the world does not heighten the significance of our character. If anything, it reduces it. Our acute need is to cultivate a willingness to learn and to remain teachable.

I don't know if there's a God. (And neither do you, and neither does Professor Dawkins, and neither does anybody. It isn't the kind of thing you can know. It isn't a knowable item.) But then, like every human being, I am not in the habit of entertaining only the emotions I can prove. I'd be a unrecognizable oddity if I did.

This insistence on a degree of faith in the communicant is also illustrative of Wesley's belief in the necessity for the co-operation of an active faith in man with the gift of God's grace to make the sacrament effective, which is congruent with his whole theology of salvation, with it's blending of the objective and the subjective.

The geometry of judgment is a circle. Hate is a snake that turns to consume itself from the tail, a circle that diminishes to a point, then to nothing. Pride is such a snake, and envy, and greed. Love, however, is a hoop, a wheel, that rolls on forever. We are rescued by those whom we have rescued. The saved become the saviors of their saviors.

Floating there I held onto faith. Because you can't know who might cross your path or who will take your breath away. You can't know what friends might actually become sisters because they stayed by your side. You can't know when there'll be an unexpected detour that'll take you to the place where you were always meant to be.

I want to cultivate a deep sense of gratitude, of groundedness, of enough, even while I’m longing for something more. The longing and the gratitude, both. I’m practicing believing that God knows more than I know, that he sees what I can’t, that he’s weaving a future I can’t even imagine from where I sit this morning.

What the hell are you getting so upset about?" he asked her bewilderedly in a tone of contrite amusement. "I thought you didn't believe in God.""I don't," she sobbed, bursting violently into tears. "But the God I don't believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He's not the mean and stupid God you make Him out to be.

May every soul that touches mine—be it the slightest contact –Get therefore some good;Some little grace, one kindly thought;One aspiration yet unfelt;One bit of courageFor the darkening sky;One gleam of faithTo brave the thickening ills of life;One glimpse of brighter skiesBeyond the gathering mist –To make their life worthwhile.

It demands persistence when common sense says ‘give up.’ It says ‘believe’ when there is no present evidence to back it up. Faith is forged in delay. Character is forged in delay… Part of what the forge does in the purification and shaping of our character is to help us begin to see time from God’s perspective.

Yes, one whose faith is continually stimulated by the upward look gives no ground to the attempted encroachment of despair. No matter how great the trouble or how dark the outlook, a quick lifting of the heart to God in a moment of real actual faith in him will completely alter any situation and turn the darkness of midnight into glorious sunrise.

It was the security man’s nightmare scenario. In the face of death, why wouldn’t there be riots? Why wouldn’t there be killing and theft and rape? If there were no consequences – or if all the consequences were the same – then anything became possible. It was his job to expect the worst of humanity, including himself.

How do you know it'll be pleasurable?" He got on the bed and lay down.Breath a whisper, she came closer and tied one wrist to the headboard. The cat growled but didn't try to make him wrench free."Because just looking at you gives me the most extreme pleasure I've ever felt.""Christ, baby, tie me up before you start talking like that.