A Light in the Window Quotes

“I believe that's when God first started speaking to my heart--the very day I started speaking to His!”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Love is an actual need, an urgent requirement of the heart," he read aloud from an old essay on marriage that he found in his files.

"Every properly constituted human being who entertains an appreciation of loneliness...and looks forward to happiness and content feels the necessity of loving. Without it, life is unfinished...”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Was he willing to blend into the life of another human being for the rest of his days, and have hers blend into his? That, of course, was the Bible’s bottom line on marriage: one flesh. Not separate entities, not two autonomous beings merely coming together at dinnertime or brushing past one another in the hallway, holding on to their singleness, guarding against invasion. One flesh!" (p. 207).”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Oh, Timothy, how could you not have loved someone all these years? Loving absolutely seeps from you, like a spring that bubbles up in a meadow.” “Maybe you can convince me of that, but I doubt it. I find myself niggardly and self-seeking, hard as stone somewhere inside. Look how I’ve treated you.” “Yes, but you could never deceive me into thinking you were hard as stone. You’ve always betrayed your tenderness to me, something in your face, your eyes, your voice ...” “Then I have no cover with you?” “Very little.” “ ‘Violet only wanted a friend,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘but every time she tried to have one, she did something that chased them away.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“In Isaiah, God said, ‘I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord . . .’ Times of darkness can be some of the best times.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“We are not necessarily doubting,” said C. S. Lewis, “that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” He”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“My work is awfully labored just now. Sometimes it has the most wondrous life of its own, it fairly pulls me along—rather like wind surfing! At other times, it drags and mopes, so that I despair of ever writing another word or drawing another picture. I’ve found that if one keeps pushing along during the mopes, out will flash the most exhilarating thought or idea—a way of doing something that I had never seen before—and then, one is off again, and hold on to your hat!”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“toss it and ask the Holy Spirit to take over—”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Schooling doesn’t count for much in the end. What counts is our personal relationship with God. Period. Bottom line.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“I thought you drove down here in a Buick," said Absalom Greer, "but it looks like you've come drivin' a hard bargain.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“If God puts you there, He is amply sufficient.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“We are not necessarily doubting,” said C. S. Lewis, “that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Soon, he wanted to preach on personal, as compared to institutional, salvation. Confessing Christ before others was an act of institutional salvation that most churchgoers had done long ago. He wanted to get at something more compelling, more life-changing-the process of personal confession, of personal relationship with Christ. He also wanted to point out that being a priest no more assured him of heaven than being a chipmunk would assure him of nuts for winter.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“His feelings of panic had passed once before; it would pass again, he told himself. He must go forward on faith, not feeling.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“He remembered a speaker at a seminar who had put five large stones in a glass. Those were the important things in life, the speaker said and went on to demonstrate how the small stones, or less important things, could easily be put in and shaken down among the cracks.

However, if the small stones were put in first, it was impossible to add the large stones.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“He had laughed today; he had been happy. He didn't know why he had not counted more sunny hours in his life, but he hadn't. God had clearly asked him to, but he was intent on having his own nature, and his own nature could be inward, even melancholy. He didn't like it, but here it was.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“He must go forward on faith, not feeling.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“He had laughed today; he had been happy. He didn’t know why he had not counted more sunny hours in his life, but he hadn’t. God had clearly asked him to, but he was intent on having his own nature, and his own nature could be inward, even melancholy. He didn’t like it, but there it was.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Memories give a lot, but they take a lot, too. I'm limp as a dishrag.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Sometimes I'm afraid to move forward, but I'm terrified to turn back.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“That's the way it is with feelings like this. You've got to take them somewhere. They can't be allowed to merely dangle around in space.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Weddings," he said. "I like weddings. Baptisms. Confirmations. Even funerals, in a sense. Life events are wonderous.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“ Your openness has widened the door of my own heart, somehow, and I feel a tenderness for you that is nearly overwhelming. I can't think how I could be worth the care you take with me, the effort you expend, and the ceaseless patience you bring to our friendship. For this alone, I must love you.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Dear Timothy,
Thank you for the note that might have been written to a great-aunt who once invited you to a tea of toast and kippers.
Yours sincerely,
Cynthia ”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“What do you want to talk about?"

"Everything and nothing. What you did today, what I did today, what we'll do tomorrow. About God and how He's working in our lives. About my work, about your work, about life, about love, about what's for dinner and how the roses are doing - do they have black spot or beetles . . .”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“He kissed her mouth, and it was as if he'd been doing it all his life; it was the most natural thing in the world. He felt he was taking a kind of nourishment that would make him strong and fearless.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“You and I, on the other hand, are the perfect size for each other. As we're very nearly the same height, we're just like a pair of bookends.”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“Father, you do not have to be a villain to act one in a play . . .”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“To roughly paraphrase Paul, why do I do what I don’t want to do and don’t do what I want to do?”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window

“I’ve found that if one keeps pushing along during the mopes, out will flash the most exhilarating thought or idea—a way of doing something that I had never seen”
― Jan Karon, A Light in the Window