Twixt hope and fear, anxiety and anger.
Never consider whether you are of use; but ever consider that you are not your own but His.
If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others.
God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn’t ask, “Do you want to go through this loss of a loved one, this difficulty, or this defeat?” No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding, and more insistent on our own way. The things that happen either make us evil, or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy.
The remarkable thing about God is that when you fear God, you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God, you fear everything else.
If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that really counts. God’s purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us.
God is the Great Engineer, creating circumstances to bring about moments in our lives of divine importance, leading us to divine appointments
There was an Irish space program to go to the sun. They went at night so they didn't get burnt.
Solitude is considered un-American.
You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives.
Simply adored Timothy Schaffert's The Coffins of Little Hope: the voice of Essie, the narrator, is terrific & the last line blew me away.