We can't really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture.

No one whose first concern is feeling good can be a disciple. We are called to carry a cross and to glorify God.

The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.

She had the consciousness of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two.

Either we are adrift in chaos or we are individuals, created, loved, upheld and placed purposefully, exactly where we are. Can you believe that? Can you trust God for that?

We want to avoid suffering, death, sin, ashes. But we live in a world crushed and broken and torn, a world God Himself visited to redeem. We receive his poured-out life, and being allowed the high privilege of suffering with Him, may then pour ourselves out for others.

She is free not by disobeying the rules but by obeying them.