Stephen Cottrell > Quotes

“And when I first heard these things, the words were like nails being driven into my head. That day in the Temple, when I first saw God's glory shining before me in terrible majesty and light, all I could see was my own unworthiness. You see, I have come to know about light and darkness. How sometimes they can be the same thing. For the greatest light of all, the light of the glorious majesty of God, if you see it, you will be blinded, plunged into darkness, and then you will see yourself as you really are.”
― Stephen Cottrell, Walking Backwards to Christmas

“Now it is night again, and I am waiting for the dawn of tomorrow. But it will not be the same. The sun will rise, but it will rise on a different world, a world into which a greater light has come. And in the revelation of tomorrow's dawn I will be embraced by God. It will burst upon me, but this time it will not be a portent of the future but confirmation of today's radiance. I will be gripped by the brightness of the morning sun and my years will slip away.”
― Stephen Cottrell, Walking Backwards to Christmas

“Was it love? I don't know. Not yet. Love isn't a feeling. Love isn't just desire, though how I desired her. Love is the patient accumulation of shared memories, the joining together of two lifetimes into one, the weaving of separate stories into the story... [Love is] the greatest gift of all: a lifetime shared, to know and to be known.”
― Stephen Cottrell, Walking Backwards to Christmas

“God is the end. I look into the myriad multitudes of the stars that shine like radiant beams of florid hopefulness, pinholes into heaven itself, and see that as God is my origin and the meaning to each day and each moment, so God will be my ending. I do not need to describe it or explain it, and even if I did it cannot be so reduced. But I do believe it. It is my pulse. It is simply this: my life is an offering of praise to the wonderful God who made life possible.”
― Stephen Cottrell, Walking Backwards to Christmas