Hannah Sorenson’s Reviews > The Hard Good: Showing Up for God to Work in You When You Want to Shut Down > Status Update

^Then the heart of Éowyn changed, or else at last she understood it. And suddenly her winter passed, and the sun shone on her.
—J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King^

^When we refuse to apologize, we are holding two prisoners—ourselves and someone else. The act of apology is the act of releasing both of us who are bound.^

^Death to flesh results in abundance of life—that is God’s equation.^

^To be willing to die on a cross, you are first willing to die to every other right. We have to die on our daily crosses too.^

^I have never been to prison, but I know quite well what an emotional jail cell feels like. This situation locked me up for quite a while.^

^In many ways bringing them into the light helps eliminate their shadows.^

^No one is ever truly moved by the thought of a perfect Christian. But they are moved by the testimony of the Christian who presses on.^

^The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience.
—Flannery O’Connor^

^We [the church] should be leading out in things, as the spiritual guides of this world. We should be the first to help in every situation. When things go wrong, people should look around and see the church front and center and say, “Of course the church is here.”^

^The same sun which melts wax hardens clay. And the same Gospel which melts some persons to repentance hardens others in their sins.
—Charles H. Spurgeon^