"To some, the image of a pale body glimmering on a dark night whispers of defeat. What good is a God who does not control his Son's suffering? But another sound can be heard: the shout of a God crying out to human beings, "I LOVE YOU." Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to - because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.


Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross. "
— Philip Yancey

""God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain, because we are committed to him, not to our own good feelings and rewards. He wants us to cleave to him, as Job did, even when we have every reason to deny him hotly. That, I believe, is the central message of Job. Satan had taunted God with the accusation that humans are not truly free. Was Job being faithful simply because God had allowed him a prosperous life? Job's fiery trials proved the answer beyond doubt. Job clung to God's justice when he was the best example in history of God's apparent injustice. He did not seek the Giver because of his gifts; when all gifts were removed he still sought the Giver." -Yancey pg 91

"[Job] by standing on his own in the midst of suffering, without the benefit of soothing answers, gained powerful new strength. As Rabbi Abraham Heschel has said, 'Faith like Job's cannot be shaken because it is the result of having been shaken.' " - Yancey pg 92 "
— Philip Yancey (Where Is God When It Hurts?)

"The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not--Do your duty, but--Do what is not your duty. It is not your duty to go the second mile, to turn the other cheek, but Jesus says if we are His disciples we shall always do these things. There will be no spirit of--"Oh, well, I cannot do any more, I have been so misrepresented and misunderstood". . . Never look for right in the other man, but never cease to be right yourself. We are always looking for justice; the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is--Never look for justice, but never cease to live it."
— Oswald Chambers (My Utmost for His Highest)

"Any profession of faith…entrusts the mind and heart to a truth that cannot be proven but can be lived."
— Luke Timothy Johnson (The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why it Matters)

"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously."
— Hubert H. Humphrey

"I am not young enough to know everything."
— Oscar Wilde

"You can't hold a man down without staying down with him."
— Booker T. Washington

"Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind."
— G.K. Chesterton

"There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus."
— Blaise Pascal (Pensees)

"Women are like teabags; you never know how strong they are until they're put in hot water."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"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

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."
— Mother Teresa

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us."
— Helen Keller

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."
— Dr. Seuss

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
— Confucius

"I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much."
— Mother Teresa

"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
— Albert Einstein

"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"(The Christian) does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us."
— C.S. Lewis