Hannah Sorenson’s Reviews > Secure in the Everlasting Arms > Status Update

cont’d

And it’s amazing what rest comes from the gentle fitting of self to its sphere.^

^John S. Dwight (1813-93) said, “Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere.” If in my “sphere” I find things out of place through someone else’s fault this is my opportunity to fit myself, to give a little, to do the small thing that should have been done by the other. Love is very patient, very kind, never rude, never selfish.

^We learn to love Him as we learn to “frame our heart to the burden,” as Samuel Rutherford said.^

^As I reminded my daughter Valerie’s (in the book I wrote as a wedding present to her, Let Me Be A Woman), you marry a sinner. There simply isn’t anything else to marry. So the husband sins against the wife and—let us wives not forget—he, too married a sinner.^

^But having been at this a good number of years, I am more and more aware of the difficulty of helping people to turn their eyes to Jesus. The world is, as Wordsworth put it, too much with us.^

Wordsworth again! I’m seeing it in so many different books!

^John Henry Newman (1801-1890) wrote, “To take up the cross of Christ is no great action done once for all; it consists in the continual practice of small duties which are distasteful to us.”^

cont’d

Do not crave so much to be perfect, but let your spiritual life be formed by your duties, and by the actions which are called forth by circumstances. Do not take overmuch thought for tomorrow. God, who has led you safely on so far, will lead you on to the end. Be altogether at rest in the loving holy confidence which you ought to have in His heavenly Providence.” (St. Francis de Sales)^

cont’d

New treasures still, of countless price,
God will provide for sacrifice.

The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves—a road
To bring us daily nearer God.

”Go in all simplicity; do not be anxious to win a quiet mind, and it will be all the quieter. Do not examine so closely into the progress of your soul.

^The following are a few of the stanzas of Keble’s hymn. Think about them while you peel a carrot, drive a truck, listen to a bore, receive criticism, or do any other task that seems odious:

New every morning is the love
Our waking and uprising prove;
Through sleep darkness safely brought,
Restored to like and power of thought.

If on our daily course our mind
Be set to hallow all we find,

^Love always means sacrifice.^