Quotes from Jan Karon

If God puts you there, He is amply sufficient.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,' " he said, quoting Wordsworth. " 'Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;/ little we see in Nature that is ours;/ we have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

In truth, Mitford is everywhere. You can even find it in the heart of darkness. But we must do our part. We must give a hand; we must learn to console and uplift and encourage and be courageous. Bottom line, we simply cannot wait for others to reach out. We must reach in.

Let us bathe ourselves, our family, and friends in prayer. Let us bathe our work and our enemies in prayer. And let us always come boldly to the throne of grace . . . that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Not everything can be understood or resolved," said Henry. "But it all has to be faced, I think.

Thank you for patience that you may reward it, thank you for brokenness that you may mend it, thank you for love that you may enlarge it above our most heartfelt expectations.

We took the parkway to Linville Falls, 221 to Marion, then I-40 here. The Alleluia Highway, we decided to call it.

Men ate the bread of angels," was how the psalmist described it. That appeared, somehow, to illustrate his marriage. Every day, with what seemed to be no effort at all on his part, he received God's extraordinary provision of contentment—there it was, waiting for him at every dawn; all he had to do was gather it in.

All that I have seen," Mr. Emerson said and I say with him, "teaches me to trust the Creator for all that I have not seen.

Some have been in church all their lives and have never known this mighty, marvelous, and yet simple personal relationship. Others believe that while such a relationship may be possible, it's not for them—why would God want to bother with them, except from a very great distance? In reality, it is no bother to God at all. He wants this relationship far, far more than you and I want it, and I pray that you will ponder that marvelous truth.

Deep in their roots,' Roethke had said, 'all flowers keep the light.

It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Don't worry about anything . . ." he said aloud, quoting his all-time standby verse in the fourth chapter of Philippians, "but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your requests known unto God, and the peace that passes all understanding will fill your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

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.

There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person," Pascal wrote. "And it can never be filled by any created thing. It can only be filled by God, made known through Jesus Christ.

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.

His feelings of panic had passed once before; it would pass again, he told himself. He must go forward on faith, not feeling.

There are two things to aim at in life,' " he quoted from Logan Pearsall Smith. " 'First, to get what you want, and after that, to enjoy it.

No two persons every read the same book.—Edmund Wilson "Nor does any one person ever reread the same book!

Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts, and awaken hope, that we may know thee as thou art revealed in Scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of thy love, amen.

Let us weigh the gain and the loss, wagering that God is. Consider these alternatives—if you win, you win all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Do not hesitate, then, to wager that he is.

Niebuhr spoke to that," said Father Tim. "Indeed. He said, 'Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.

I think you could say I came to the end of myself. I really did want a show all my own, and he had to hammer me pretty hard to make me see that it was all his. We don't like relinquishing the power we never had anyway, even though running the show ourselves never works. I surrendered everything to him. What did I have to lose?

That was his favorite thing about books—they took you off to other people's lives an' places, but you could still set in your own chair by th'oil heater, warm as a mouse in a churn.