Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength.
Frederick BuechnerGod created us in joy and created us for joy, and in the long run not all the darkness there is in the world and in ourselves can separate us finally from that joy, because whatever else it means to say that God created us in His image, I think it means that even when we cannot believe in Him, even when we feel most spiritually bankrupt and deserted by Him, His mark is deep within us. We have God's joy in our blood.
Frederick BuechnerThe world says, The more you take, the more you have. Christ says, the more you give, the more you are.
Frederick BuechnerMy story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.
Frederick BuechnerFaith is stepping out into the unknown with nothing to guide us but a hand just beyond our grasp.
Frederick BuechnerWhat's prayer? It's shooting shafts into the dark. What mark they strike, if any, who's to say? It's reaching for a hand you cannot touch. The silence is so fathomless that prayers like plummets vanish into the sea. You beg. You whimper. You load God down with empty praise. You tell him sins that he already knows full well. You seek to change his changeless will. Yet Godric prays the way he breathes, for else his heart would wither in his breast. Prayer is the wind that fills his sail. Else drift with witless tides. And sometimes, by God's grace, a prayer is heard.
Frederick Buechner