"It shall turn to you for a testimony'' Luke 21:13.
“Life is a steep climb, and it does the heart good to have somebody ‘call back’ and cheerily beckon us on up the high hill. We are all climbers together, and we must help one another. This mountain climbing is serious business, but glorious. It takes strength and steady step to find the summits. The outlook widens with the altitude. If anyone among us has found anything worth while, we ought to ‘call back’.”
Streams in the Desert
Mrs. Chas. E. Cowman
And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling, "How could it be so?
"It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
"It came without packages, boxes or bags."
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store.
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps... means a little bit more!."
Dr. Seuss - How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
Holiness--as I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it--appeared to me to be of a sweet, calm, pleasant, charming, serene nature, which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness, ravishment to the soul; in other words, that it made the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant fruits and flowers, all delightful and undisturbed, enjoying a sweet calm and the gentle vivifying beams of the sun. ~Jonathan Edwards
"Let us put our minds together and see what life we can makefor our children." ~Sitting Bull
In the famous lace shops of Brussels, there are certain rooms devoted to the spinning of the finest and most delicate patterns. These rooms are altogether darkened, save for a light from one very small window, which falls directly upon the pattern. There is only one spinner in the room, and he sits where the narrow stream of light falls upon the threads of his weaving. "Thus," we are told by the guide, "do we secure our choicest products. Lace is always more delicately and beautifully woven when the worker himself is in the dark and only his pattern is in the light."
"May it not be the same with us in our weaving?" ~J. R. Miller
The shuttles of His purpose move
To carry out His own design;
Seek not too soon to disapprove
His work, nor yet assign
Dark motives, when, with silent tread,
You view some soinbre fold;
For lo, within each darker thread
There twines a thread of gold.
Spin cheerfully,
Not tearfully,
He knows the way you plod;
Spin carefully,
Spin prayerfully,
But leave the thread with God.
--Canadian Home Journal
"The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction."
Henri NouwenWatch for the Light
“Face it out to the end, cast away every shadow of hope on the human side as an absolute hindrance to the Divine, heap up all the difficulties together recklessly, and pile as many more on as you can find; you cannot get beyond the blessed climax of impossibility. Let faith swing out to Him. He is the God of the impossible. -Selected
Streams in the DesertMrs. Chas. E. Cowman
“It is sometimes very difficult not to be offended in Jesus Christ.
The offenses may be circumstantial. I find myself in a prison-house – a narrow sphere, a sick chamber, an unpopular position – when I had hoped for wide opportunities. Yes, but He knows what is best for me. My environment is of His determining. He means it to intensify my faith, to draw me into nearer communion with Himself, to ripen my power. In the dungeon my soul should prosper.
“The offense may be mental. I am haunted by perplexities, questions, which I cannot solve. I had hoped that, when I gave myself to Him, my sky would always be clear; but often it is overspread by mist and cloud. Yet let me believe that, if difficulties remain, it is that I may learn to trust Him all the more implicitly – to trust and not be afraid. Yes, and by my intellectual conflicts, I am trained to be a tutor to other storm-driven men.
“The offense may be spiritual. I had fancied that within His fold I should never feel the biting winds of temptation; but it is best as it is. His grace is magnified. My own character is matured. His heaven is sweeter at the close of the day. There I shall look back on the turnings and trials of the way, and shall sing the praises of my Guide. So, let come what will come, His will is welcome; and I shall refuse to be offended in my loving Lord.
– Alexander Smellie
Streams in the DesertMrs. Chas. E. Cowman
“If I have found grace in thy sight, show me thy glory.” Exodus 33:13
"Who has not in moments of meditation and prayer caught a glimpse of opening gates? Who has not in the secret place of holy communion felt the rush of some white surging wave of emotion – a foretaste of the joy of the blessed?
"The Master had times and places for quiet converse with His disciples, once on the peak of Hermon, but oftener on the sacred slopes of Olivet. Every Christian should have his Olivet. Most of us, especially in the cities and towns, live at high pressure. From early morning until bedtime we are exposed to the whirl. Amid all this maelstrom how little chance for quiet thought, for God’s Word, for prayer and heart fellowship!"
Streams in the Desert
By Mrs. Chas. E. Cowman
This is the Product Description:“From Johann Christoph Arnold to Dorothy Day, from Madeline L'Engle to Karl Barth, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Meister Eckhart, this unparalleled anthology offers wisdom beauty and spiritual nourishment from a wide spectrum of classic and contemporary sources.”
“Containing a selection for each day of the Christmas season, from the last week of November through the first week of January, Watch for the Light can be read through times of leisure or as a guide to daily devotions. Either way it will give new meaning to the phrase ‘holiday preparations.’"I’m really looking forward to reading and meditating on these various writings and writers.
"Politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back."
~Thomas Sowell
Today is the birthday of the Ticker Tape Parade? 124 years ago, on this day in“He went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when evening was come, he was there alone.” ~ Matt. 14:23
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that."
-- Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
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| Liberty Tree, St. John's College |
“Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.” (Exod. 3:1,2)
