Cherish Parker

“The cruel chisel destroys a stone with each cut. But what the stone suffers by repeated blows is no less than the shape the mason is making of it. And should a poor stone be asked, ‘What is happening to you?’ it might reply, ‘Don’t ask me. All I know is that for my part there is nothing for me to know or do, only to remain steady under the hand of my master and to love him and suffer him to work out my destiny. It is for him to know how to achieve this. I know neither what he is doing nor why. I only know that he is doing what is best and most perfect, and I suffer each cut of the chisel as though it were the best thing for me, even though, to tell the truth, each one is my idea of ruin, destruction and defacement. But, ignoring all this, I rest contented with the present moment. Thinking only of my duty to it, I submit to the work of this skillful master without caring to know what it is.”
― Ellen Vaughn, Being Elisabeth Elliot: The Authorized Biography: Elisabeth’s Later Years

“We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would. We question God when it doesn’t.”
― Lysa TerKeurst, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered

“The priest had told Elisabeth how much that moment in Scripture moved his soul. “. . . we are human, as Peter was, and apt to make mistakes. But there is that look, that hope. Could you take away with you from Jerusalem any better souvenir than to know that here Jesus had turned and looked upon you?”
― Ellen Vaughn, Being Elisabeth Elliot: The Authorized Biography: Elisabeth’s Later Years

“Whatever befalls us . . . however it befalls us, we must receive as the Will of God. If it befalls us through man’s negligence, or ill will, or anger, still it is, in even the least circumstance, to us the will of God for if the least thing could happen to us without God’s permission, it would be something out of His control. His providence or His love would not be what they are. Almighty God Himself would not be the same God; not the God whom we believe, adore, and love.” —E. B. Pusey, noted in Elisabeth’s leather notebook of favorite quotes”
― Ellen Vaughn, Being Elisabeth Elliot: The Authorized Biography: Elisabeth’s Later Years