“Pain redeemed impresses me more than pain removed.”
- Phillip Yancey, What Good Is God?: In Search of a Faith That Matters, 2010
Pain Redeemed
October 13, 2011Jesus of the Scars
July 14, 2011The other gods were strong, but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.
- Edward Shillito (1872-1948)
Gift
June 7, 2011“Health is a gift from God, but sickness is a gift greater still.”
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
The Father’s Love
June 7, 2011“The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17
Grace
June 3, 2011“Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become ‘jolly beggars.’”
- C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, 1960
Bittersweet
May 30, 2011“When I am in the cellar of affliction, I look for the Lord’s choicest wines.”
- Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)
Heaven
April 13, 2011“That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”
– C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, 1946
A Friend Who Cares
February 15, 2011“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in a hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
- Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey, 1990
My Shield
January 31, 2011The LORD is my strength and my shield;
in him my heart trusts;
so I am helped, and my heart exults,
and with my song I give thanks to him.”
- Psalm 28:7
Strength
January 9, 2011“We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul — not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.”
- Colossians 1:11-12, The Message
