unprepared

"What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God`s eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when He catches us, as it were, off our guard." -C.S. Lewis

this world

"Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave with regret? There are better things ahead than any we leave behind." -C.S. Lewis

reflections

it is not the health of a relationship which worries me, for that is only a reflection of a greater disconnect, The Problem

desperate

true desperation cannot be blamed on companionship or a lack thereof, that would be an excuse, a scapegoat to The Only Need- which has been tasted, and yet left unquenched

The great wonder

"The great wonder of Jesus Christ’s salvation is that He changes our heredity. He does not change human nature— He changes its source, and thereby its motives as well." -Oswald Chambers

good

"The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives" -Oswald Chambers

Exodus 14

13 Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord.

Psalm 23

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

blame or credit?

"It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves." -C.S. Lewis

choose

not one day passes when we must not make The Choice, not of salvation but grace- grace to live

self

"we should, I believe, distrust states of mind which turn our attention upon ourselves. Even at our sins we sh ould look no longer than is necessary to know and to repent them; and our virtues or progress (if any) are certainly a dangerous object of contemplation. When the sun is vertically above a man he casts no shadow: similarly when we have come to the Divine meridian our spiritual shadow (that is, our consciousness of self) will vanish. One will thus in asense be almost nothing: a room to be filled by God and our blessed fellow creatures, who in their turn are rooms we help to fill." -C.S. Lewis

desire

when it is clear to me what I want, then and only then will it be clear to others

things

"too much of a good thing"

when we have reached that point at which something originally declared, "good" has soured at the expense of unrestraint or self-indulgence, that once good thing ceases to be good.

knowledge, courage, faith, presence (the list truly never ends) all victims, when taken alone, of "too much"

but what good, as found in the account of creation, can ever be taken to such hideous extremes?

belief

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." -C.S. Lewis

pride

"God is not proud...He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him." -C.S. Lewis

only passion

"Mortal lovers must not try to remain at the first step; for lasting passion is the dream of a harlot and from it we wake in despair." -C.S. Lewis

conversation

"If one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation would be a very poor business." -C.S. Lewis

guarded

"to love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." -C.S. Lewis

forgiveness

"we cannot have true compassion on others unless we are willing to accept pity and receive forgiveness for our own sins. We do not really know how to forgive until we know what it is to be forgiven. Therefore we should be glad that we can be forgiven by our brothers. It is our forgiveness of one another that makes the love of Jesus for us manifest in ourlives, for in forgiving one another we act towards one another as He has acted towards us." -Thomas Merton

life

"there is no true spiritual life outside the love of Christ. We have a spiritual life only because we are loved by Him." -Thomas Merton

distressed

"if we know how great is the love of Jesus for us we will never be afraid to go to Him in all our poverty, all our weakness, all our spiritual wretchedness and infirmity. Indeed, when we understand the true nature of His love for us, we will prefer to come to Him poor and helpless. We will never be ashamed of our distress. Distress is to our advantage when we have nothing to seek but mercy. We can be glad of our helplessness when we really believe that His power is made perfect in our infirmity." -Thomas Merton

trust

"if I trust You, everything else will become, for me, strength, health, and support. Everything will bring me to heaven. If I do not trust You, everything will be my destruction." -Thomas Merton

for the morning

"as heavenly dew, He removes our barrenness and fertilizes our lives. O that He would drop from above upon us at this early hour! Such morning dew would be a sweet commencement for the day" -Oswald Chambers

Charity

"William Morris wrote a poem called 'Love is Enough' and someone is said to have reviewed it briefly in the words 'It isn't'.... The natural loves are not self-sufficient. Something else, at first vaguely described as 'decency and common sense', but later revealed as goodness, and finally as the whole Christian life in one particular relation, must come to the help of the mere feeling if the feeling is to be kept sweet.

To say this is not to belittle the natural loves but to indicate where their real glory lies. It is no disparagement to a garden to say that it will not fence and weed itself, nor prune its own fruit trees, nor roll and cut its own lawns. A garden is a good thing but that is not the sort of goodness it has. It will remain a garden, as distinct froma wilderness, only if someone does all these things to it. Its real glory is of quite a different kind. The very fact that it needs constant weeding and pruning bears witness to that glory. It teems with life. It glows with colour and smells like heaven and puts forward at every hour of a summer day beauties which man could never have created and could not even, on his own resources, have imagined. If you want to see the difference between its contribution and the gardener's, put the commonest weed it grows side by side his hoes, rakes, shears, and packet of weed killer; you have put beauty, energy and fecundity beside dead, sterile things. Just so, our 'decency and common sense' show grey and deathlike beside the geniality of love." -C.S. Lewis

as we are

"In spiritual issues it is customary for us to put God first, but we tend to think that it is inappropriate and unnecessary to put Him first in the practical, everyday issues of our lives. If we have the idea that we have to put on our 'spiritual face' before we can come near to God, then we will never come near to Him. We must come as we are." -Oswald Chambers

family

"He descends upon the chosen as upon the Lord in Jordan, and bears witness to their sonship by working in them a filial spirit by which they cry Abba, Father" -Oswald Chambers

comfort

"as a Comforter He dispels the cares and doubts which mar the peace of His beloved" -Oswald Chambers

presence

"would to God, that we might feel His presence this day and every day" -Oswald Chambers