Beverly

“I have found that it is the small everyday deed of ordinary folks that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”
― Peter Jackson

“It is a hard thing for a rich man to grow poor; but it is an awful thing for him to grow dishonest, and some kinds of speculation lead a man deep into dishonesty before he thinks what he is about. Poverty will not make a man worthless—he may be of worth a great deal more when he is poor than he was when he was rich; but dishonesty goes very far indeed to make a man of no value—a thing to be thrown out in the dust-hole of the creation, like a bit of broken basin, or dirty rag.”
― George MacDonald, At the Back of the North Wind

“Part of the practice of modest faith, in times of suffering, is relinquishing our right to answers. God has never promised to explain himself, but he has promised to stay near. I will never leave, he says; I will never forsake. I am the friend that sticks closer than your brother. Do not think me unmoved by your grief. These are the faithful assurances of God as we have them in Scripture, and here is even more hope available to those willing to search it out. But let’s not be fooled to think that God has promised things like: it will get better, you’ll soon see the purpose behind this pain, there’s never more than you can handle. Often it does get better; often we do see purpose; always there is sufficient grace. But lament must practice the modest faith of finding sufficient that which God provides, even if, in seasons of great sorrow, it may not seem like enough.” …”
― Jen Pollock Michel, Surprised by Paradox: The Promise of And in an Either-Or World

“She (Antonia) smiled back at him. "It's still Christmas," she said very quietly. "We must not forget or ignore that. Without Christmas, there would be no hope. And I need hope: wild unreasonable, against all the logic that man can have, things only God can do.”
― Anne Perry, A Christmas Visitor