Abigail > Abigail's Quotes

“It sounds really spiritual to say God is interested in a relationship, not in rules. But it's not biblical. From top to bottom, the Bible is full of commands. They aren't meant to stifle a relationship with God, but to protect it, seal it, and define it. Never forget: first God delivered the Israelites from Egypt, then He gave them the law. God's people were not redeemed by observing the law. But they were redeemed so that they might obey the law.”
― Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness

“The home is the first and most effective place to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self control, the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no worldly success can compensate for failure in the home.”
― David O. McKay

“Then, too, I looked at my 'light affliction' and at the 'weight of glory,' side by side, and thanked Him that through the one He had revealed to me the other.”
― Elisabeth Prentiss, Stepping Heavenward

“The most indifferent actions cease to be such and become good as soon as one performs them with the intention of conforming one's self in them to the will of God. They are often better and purer than certain actions that appear more virtuous. 1st, because they are less of our own choice and more in the order of Providence when one is obliged to perform them; 2nd, because they are simpler and less exposed to vain complaisance; 3rd, because if one yields to them with moderation, one finds in them more of death to one's inclinations than in certain acts of fervor in which self-love mingles; finally, because these little occasions occur more frequently and furnish a secret occasion for continually making every moment profitable.”
― Elisabeth Prentiss, Stepping Heavenward

“Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, wondrously blest!”
― Elisabeth Prentiss

“The question is not whether you ever gave yourself to God, but whether you are His now.”
― Elizabeth Prentiss, Stepping Heavenward

“But just as suddenly the darkness receded, the pool of light seemed to take me in, as I thought how anything we do—any job, act, gesture—becomes meaningful if done with a heart for God. Was this the great diurnal paradox looming up again—nothing matters and everything does?”
― Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

“The more I discovered of the scientific world, the more it convinced me of the amazing interconnectedness and brilliancy of God’s design. People tend to think of science as being at odds with faith, but nothing could be further from the truth. The one only confirms the other; the one only illuminates its echo, and yet its limitations and dependence in the face of the other.”
― Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

“Chesterton was right when he claimed that ‘the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”
― Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

“I would hope a God that I believe in is bigger than I am,” he said one night. I argued that I could not appreciate something if I did not understand it. He held that his appreciation for something only grew if he could not comprehend it fully.”
― Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

“That is the bizarre thing about the good news: who knows how you will really hear it one day, but once you have heard it, I mean really heard it, you can never unhear it. Once you have read it, or spoken it, or thought it, even if it irritates you, even if you hate hearing it or cannot find it feasible, or try to dismiss it, you cannot unread it, or unspeak it, or unthink it.”
― Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford

“I began to worry that perhaps I was getting in over my head here. It was occurring to me that believing in the Bible was an all-or-nothing affair. Either you believe it is the revealed Word of God, or you don’t. It is like being a little bit pregnant. Impossible. Either you are in or you are out. Having eliminated lunatic, given the unavoidable seriousness warranted of my attention, was it now liar or Lord?”
― Carolyn Weber, Surprised by Oxford