Allison Redd

“A life outside of Christ is both hard and frightening; a life in Christ has hard edges and dark valleys, but it is purposeful even when painful.”
― Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

“Fanny! You are killing me!"
"No man dies of love but on the stage, Mr. Crawford.”
― Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

“Every Sunday I nudge Sam in her direction, and he walks to where she is sitting and hugs her. She smells him behind the ears, where he most smells like sweet unwashed new potatoes. This is in fact what I think God may smell like, a young child's slightly dirty neck.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

“And wrapped in this risk and danger are God’s embrace and promise to work all things (even evil ones) to the good of those who love him. When we read in the book of Romans, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose” (8:28), we are not to be Pollyanna about this. Many of the “things” we will face come with the razor edges of a fallen and broken world. You can’t play poker with God’s mercy—if you want the sweet mercy then you must also swallow the bitter mercy. And what is the difference between sweet and bitter? Only this: your critical perspective, your worldview. One of God’s greatest gifts is the ability to see and appreciate the world from points of view foreign to your own, points of view that exceed your personal experience. That is what it means to me to grow in Christ—to exceed myself as I stretch to him.”
― Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert