Barbara Harper

“Your worth isn’t earned. Scripture speaks honestly about our condition—sinners by nature, hostile to God. And yet God’s love reaches across the divide, not because we deserved it, but because love is who He is. (From Mercy Mild: A 25-Day Christmas Devotional Tracing Christ’s Love from Eden to Eternity by Josh Taylor)”
― Josh Taylor, A Preach Well Church: How Churches Can Stop Burning Out Pastors

“The goal of suffering well is to move us not only beyond the stick figures, but also from a place of pride to one of intimacy and familiarity with our Lord. It is to move us not from crude to eloquent, but from unfamiliar to intimate. This is why we practice spiritual disciplines (p. 50).”
― Russ Ramsey, Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us About the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive

“Our sorrows are ultimately hallowed by the One who enters fully into the painful stories of our own lives in order to show us that our suffering matters, while also becoming the place from which the Spirit enables us to become agents of God’s healing grace to those who find themselves lost and alone in their griefs (p. xi)”
― Russ Ramsey, Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us About the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive

“I realize how sweet solitude is when it is not enforced, how contented it is possible to be in one’s own company when it is not the only possibility one has.”
― Tracy Rees, Amy Snow