Joy

“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.”
― Martin Luther

“It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees

“Daddy didn’t say anything for a minute or so, and then he reached up and caught a firefly as it glowed beside him. “See this light?” he asked me when the firefly lit up his hand.


“Yes’r.”


“That light is bright enough to light up a little speck of the night sky so a man can see it a ways away. That’s what God expects us to do. We’re to be lights in the dark, cold days that are this world. Like fireflies in December.”


“Time meandered on without Gemma’s momma and daddy, and it meandered on without Cy fuller and Walt Blevins. . . but those of us left behind viewed life more dearly, felt it more keenly. I’d learned a bit more about God and I’d seen His powerful hands at work. As I was growing, my heart was changing. And the way I figured it, there were lessons learned in those dark days that would help me for years to come.”


“As I sat on the porch on that December day . . . I leaned my head against the rail and sighed deeply. The way I figured it just then, my summer may have been full of bad luck, but my life wasn’t. I figured as far as family went, I was one of the luckiest girls alive.”
― Jennifer Erin Valent, Fireflies in December

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”
― George Washington Carver