The Clouds Ye So Much Dread Quotes

“True joy is never the enemy of godly grief. Joy is what trains and equips us to bear it.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“Even the most mundane bits of creation contain enough divine magic to make our jaws drop simply for the mere fact that they are. And, as if their merely being isn’t enough to stagger the mind, then think about what they are. From wet grass to whirling galaxies, from subatomic particles to glowing supergiants, we are surrounded with reasons to go positively weak-kneed with gratitude.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“When we follow God’s call and not our own, have we truly wasted our potential—throwing it out like trash? Or have we laid it down and planted it where our heavenly Father will raise and transform it into glorious resurrection fruit?”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“Wasted potential? No. Seeds planted. Nothing, including our “potential,” is ever wasted when it is entrusted to a God who takes even what is dead and raises it up in glory.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“But I think I can now safely say that there is no one I pity more than the one whose life goes exactly according to her own plans.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“How odd, then, that our culture has come full circle and now welcomes not religion but medication—namely, morphine—as that which gives us the hope and the courage to die without fear. Opiates have become the opiate of the people.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“We ought to take what our Master has given us and return it to Him with interest (Matt. 25:26–27). But ambition can be a slippery thing. Our motives are often hard to pin down, and we must remember that God’s economy is one of paradox: the way to glory is the way of the cross.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“My fear, at root, was a spiritual problem that was all tied up with selfishness and a growing bitterness toward God for my lot in life as a woman. This kind of fear was built on an unacknowledged distrust of God’s handling of my story. Of all the stories. Rather than standing in awe of Him, I was attempting to stand in judgment over Him whose very breath I borrowed to voice my complaints.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“That momentous birth in Bethlehem was all about taking up a mortal life in order to lay it down. Because of this, we are free to take risks, even deadly ones, in order to fulfill our duties and in order to love others—which is, when you think about it, essentially the same thing.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“Yea, though I drive through the turnpike of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head. —William Cowper30”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“But it’s not uncommon for Christians to collapse and give up, looking at themselves and then at the steep road ahead, and refusing to listen to His promises. How many—how many!—professing Christians have abandoned the faith after some deeply painful event in their lives? Why? Did they think that God would never let anything painful happen to His children? If so they don’t really know who He is.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God

“This, I’ve found, is how God often works—not in a blinding flash but in a slow and subtle transformation that cannot be perceived by the naked eye, like watching a garden grow.”
― Hannah K. Grieser, The Clouds Ye So Much Dread: Hard Times and the Kindness of God