No marriage can survive without forgiveness. Marriage is a long term commitment between two sinners.

Jesus loved the will of His Father. He embraced the limitations, the necessities, the conditions, the very chains of His humanity as He walked and worked here on earth, fulfilling moment by moment His divine commission and the stern demands of His incarnation. Never was there a word or even a look of complaint.

Silence, as someone has said, is the mother of prayer and the nurse of holy thoughts. Silence cuts down on our sins, doesn't it? We can't be sinning in so many different ways if we are being quiet before God. Silence nourishes patience, charity, discretion.

I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy and strength into it.

We must quit bending the Word to suit our situation. It is we who must be bent to that Word, our necks that must bow under the yoke.

Cruelty and wrong are not the greatest forces in the world. There is nothing eternal in them. Only love is eternal.

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.