The Eternal Gladness

I take a comfort from my very badness: It is for lack of thee that I am bad. How close, how infinitely closer yet Must I come to thee, ere I can pay one debt Which mere humanity has on me set! "How close to thee!"—no wonder, soul, thou art glad! Oneness with him is …

Out of My Dream, To Him

Easier it were, but poorer were the love. Lord, I would have me love thee from the deeps— Of troubled thought, of pain, of weariness. Through seething wastes below, billows above, My soul should rise in eager, hungering leaps; Through thorny thicks, through sands unstable press— Out of my dream to him who slumbers not …

A Prayer — Thy Shining Place

It is because it is not thou I see, But only my poor, blotted fancy of thee? Oh, never till thyself reveal thy face, Shall I be flooded with life’s vital grace. Oh, make my mirror-heart thy shining-place, And then my soul, awaking with the morn, Shall be a waking joy, eternally new-born. ~George MacDonald, …

Mend, Bind, Heal

  

Being Good Vs. Doing Good

"Why do you call me good? None is good except God alone." Checked thus, the youth turns to the question which, working in his heart, had brought him running, and made him kneel: what good thing shall he do that he may have eternal life? He thought to gain his objective by a doing, when …

Hunting Shadows

What has been, shall not only be, but is. The hues of dreamland, strange and sweet and tender Are but hint-shadows of full many a splendour Which the high Parent-love will yet unroll Before his child's obedient, humble soul. Ah, me, my God! in thee lies every bliss Whose shadow men go hunting wearily amiss.  …

What is Sand

"It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand."  ~Madeleine L'Engle

A Thing of Condition

"Salvation is not a thing of place, it is a thing of condition, it is not a thing of time, if it have ever so many countless thousand years, it is a thing of mind, and heart, and soul. Eternal life is not a continuity of existence, but a right condition of the heart towards …

Not Overcome

Christianity is not a promise to enjoy a life without pain, nor to be given a shortcut through it. It is a promise that pain, sorrow, sin - ours and others' - will not swallow us, destroy us, define us, or have the final word. ~Stasi Eldredge

Fair Realities

Some things wilt thou not one day turn to dreams? Some dreams wilt thou not one day turn to fact? The thing that painful, more than should be, seems, Shall not thy sliding years with them retract— Shall fair realities not counteract? The thing that was well dreamed of bliss and joy— Wilt thou not …