Loss, risk, love, brokenness, failure, sin, humanity

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
-Johann Wolfgang van Goethe

God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things that are mighty…and the things which are despised, God hath chosen.
-Jonathan Edwards

It was when I found out that I could make mistakes that I knew that I was onto something.
-Ornette Cateman

He is no fool who gives that he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
-Jim Elliot, October 28, 1949

If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.
-Erica Jong

Certainly nothing offends us more rudely than this doctrine [of original sin], and yet without this mystery, the most incomprehensible of all, we are incomprehensible ourselves.
-Blaise Pascal

Sin cannot be overcome by human devices of the kind that governments wield but only by suffering and by grace.
-Glenn Tinder

God’s not about, ‘If it’s broken, fix it.’ God’s about, ‘If it thinks its fixed break it.’
-James MacDonald

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no-one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk or tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all dangers and perturbations of love is hell.
-C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

Mysterious love, uncertain treasure;
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure?
Endless torments dwell about thee;
Yet who would live, and live without thee?
-Addison

We shall draw near to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as a way in which they should break, so be it.
-C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

The way to love anything is to realize it might be lost.
-G. K. Chesterton

To love is to allow hope into your life.
To hope is to allow uncertainty into your life.
To be uncertain is the essence of learning to trust God to bring only the disappointments He deems best.
-Gretchen Acheson

A God who did not abolish suffering—worse, a God who abolishes sin precisely by suffering—is a scandal to the modern mind.
-Peter Kreeft

The test of observance of Christ’s teachings is our consciousness of our failure to attain an ideal perfection. The degree to which we draw near this perfection cannot be seen; all we can see is the extent of our deviation.
-Leo Tolstoy

A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.
-Grace Murray Hopper

Matt 14.26-32: But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, "It is a ghost!" and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.’ And Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

Those who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.
-anon

Matt 16.25: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his live for my sake will find it.

Nothing that you have not given away will really be yours.
-C. S. Lewis

Philippians 1.21: For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

...it's hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind...
-Michael Card, "The Things We Leave Behind"

God cannot give us peace and happiness apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.
-C. S. Lewis

2 Corinthians 4.7: But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

At last we arrive at an entire annihilation of ourselves, and an absolute acquiescence and complacence in the will of God, which afford the only full answer to all our doubts, and the only radical cure for our evils and perplexities.
-David Hartley (1705-1757)

To let go...

To let go doesn’t mean to stop caring, it means I can’t do it for someone else.
To let go is not to cut off, it’s the realization that I don’t control another.
To let go is not to enable, but to allow learning from natural consequences.
To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means the outcome is not in my hands.
To let go is not to try to change or blame another; I can only change myself.
To let go is not to care for, but to care about.
To let go is not to fix, but to be supportive.
To let go is not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being.
To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes, but to allow others to affect their own outcomes.
To let go is not to be protective, it is to permit another to face reality.
To let go is not to deny but to accept.
To let go is not to nag, scold, or argue, but to search out my own shortcomings and to correct them.
To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires but to take each day as it comes and to cherish the moment.
To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone but to try to become what I dream I can be.
To let go is not to regret the past but to grow and live for the future.
To let go is to fear less and love more.

-by somebody

Me Instead of You!

There's one odd fact in life I’ve found—
‘Tis sad but very true—
The faults that lie in each of us
Seem so much worse in you.
If you tell me a thing or two,
You’re heartless as can be,
But when I tell you all your faults,
I’m honest, don’t you see?
When tests and trials come your way
And you feel very low,
"Why be so weak and spineless?"
Is what I’d like to know.
But when it’s me who’s down and out
Somehow it’s not the same.
It’s just that folks don’t treat me right—
I’m really not to blame.
When you set out to tackle
The impossible it seems,
You’re trifling and you’re careless
And full of idle dreams.
But when I do the very same,
It’s faith I’m clinging to;
Now isn’t it strange the change it makes
When it’s me instead of you?

-author unknown

He Will Carry Me

I call, You hear me
I've lost it all
And it's more then I can bear
I feel so empty

You're strong, I'm weary
I'm holding on
But I feel like giving in
But still You're with me

And even though I'm walking
Through the valley of the shadow
I will hold tight to the hand of Him
Who's love will comfort me

And when my hope is gone
And I've been wounded in the battle
He is all the strength that I will ever need
He will carry me

I know I'm broken
But You alone
Can mend this heart of mine
You're always with me

And even though I feel so lonely
Like I have never been before
You never said it would be easy
But You said You'd see me through the storm

-by Marc Schulz

Psalm 1 — Poeticized

How happy the one
That one
One…
Against a throng of sinners
Not marching to the wicked’s beat
Nor standing on the sinner’s street
Nor sitting on the scoffer’s seat
One, …
just one
But on God’s law both day and night
Meditating with pure delight
Thinking, feeding day and night.
How happy that one!
This one will be just like a tree
Each season precious fruit you’ll see
In all that’s done - prosperity
Full and verdant - all leaves and shoots
For near a stream are fixed all roots
Yes, by the stream comes forth good
fruits
Contrastively, are wicked shown
To be like chaff that wind has blown
Like chaff that wind has blown
On judgment day no godless stand
Nor sinners with the righteous band
No entry to the promised land
The Lord guides well the pure one’s path
But the way for wicked leads to wrath…
A fatal path that leads to wrath
One…
Against a throng of sinners.
How happy that one!

-by Milton W., 19 Sept 2005