Ann > Ann's Quotes

“To some, the image of a pale body glimmering on a dark night whispers of defeat. What good is a God who does not control his Son's suffering? But another sound can be heard: the shout of a God crying out to human beings, "I LOVE YOU." Love was compressed for all history in that lonely figure on the cross, who said that he could call down angels at any moment on a rescue mission, but chose not to - because of us. At Calvary, God accepted his own unbreakable terms of justice.


Any discussion of how pain and suffering fit into God's scheme ultimately leads back to the cross. ”
― Philip Yancey

“Grace, like water, flows to the lowest part.”
― Philip Yancey

“We tend to think, 'Life should be fair because God is fair.' But God is not life. And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life- by expecting constant good health for example- then I set myself up for crashing disappointment.”
― Philip Yancey, Disappointment with God

“God wants us to choose to love him freely, even when that choice involves pain, because we are committed to him, not to our own good feelings and rewards. He wants us to cleave to him, as Job did, even when we have every reason to deny him hotly. That, I believe, is the central message of Job. Satan had taunted God with the accusation that humans are not truly free. Was Job being faithful simply because God had allowed him a prosperous life? Job's fiery trials proved the answer beyond doubt. Job clung to God's justice when he was the best example in history of God's apparent injustice. He did not seek the Giver because of his gifts; when all gifts were removed he still sought the Giver.”
― Philip Yancey, Where Is God When It Hurts?

“I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”
― Philip Yancey

“Love deems this world worth rescuing.”
― Philip Yancey

“Christians are not perfect, by any means, but they can be people made fully alive.”
― Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church

“We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny.”
― Philip Yancey, Soul Survivor: How My Faith Survived the Church

“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.”
― Philip Yancey, Disappointment with God

“Faith means believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”
― Philip Yancey, Disappointment with God

“Power, no matter how well-intentioned, tends to cause suffering. Love, being vulnerable, absorbs it. In a point of convergence on a hill called Calvary, God renounced the one for the sake of the other.”
― Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”
― Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

“As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to putting people and things in their "right" place.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen

“Dear God,
I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to?
Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands
and to discover that I am not what I own,
but what you want to give me.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life

“Emit gratitude as though it was done”
― Henri Nouwen

“As soon as we are alone,...inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediatel;y shut ou all our iner doubts, anxieities, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distraction, we often find that our inner distraction manifest themselves to us in full force. We often use the outer distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, Making All Things New and Other Classics

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
― Corrie Ten Boom, Clippings from My Notebook

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”
― Corrie ten Boom

“Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“It is not my ability, but my response to God’s ability, that counts.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the soul.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“There is no panic in Heaven! God has no problems, only plans.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“Some knowledge is too heavy...you cannot bear it...your Father will carry it until you are able.”
― Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place

“This is what the past is for! Every experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect preparation for the future that only He can see.”
― Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place

“Even as the angry vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him....Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me your forgiveness....And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives along with the command, the love itself.”
― Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place

“Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows out of you.”
― Corrie Ten Boom

“Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.”
― Corrie Ten Boom