Do not look for rest in any pleasure, because you were not created for pleasure: you were created for joy. And if you do not know the difference between pleasure and joy you have not yet begun to live.
Thomas Merton (via hope-and-fire)
How does God feel when day after day He sends beauty, and blessings, and love, and pours out His heart, and no one notices? God is searching for those who notice.
Lisa Buffaloe, Unfailing Treasures (via hope-and-fire)
I hope you’re lonely. Regardless of how much your spouse loves you or how many friends you have who understand and encourage and challenge you, I hope you’re lonely. I hope that none of your relationships leave you satisfied. Because they aren’t made to satisfy. The only relationship that will ever satisfy you is your relationship with God. Any time you find yourself convinced that somebody else completes you, take a step back. It’s idolatry. And it’s a lie. People will sin. They’ll misunderstand. They’ll expect less of you than what you’re capable of. Your husband, your daughter, your spiritual director, your best friend: they’re not enough. And while it’s a grace that we may feel satisfied for a time, the loneliness will always return to remind us that the only one who will complete us is the Lover of our souls.
Remember this when you’re lonely: you will find what you long for only in the one who created you, the one who died for you, the one who knows you through and through and loves you just the same. Let that loneliness drive you to the foot of the Cross, where Love was poured out for you. You are not alone. You are loved beyond imagining. And the loneliness that reminds you of your need for that love is a gift.
Meg Hunter-Kilmer, The Gift of Loneliness (via hope-and-fire)
A woman’s heart must be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him to find her.
Maya Angelou
(via hope-and-fire)
(via hope-and-fire)
When that pernicious wound pops up yet again in your heart, pay attention: God wants to heal you on an even deeper level than last time. We sometimes think that one encounter with God’s love will heal us completely. But our wounds run deeper than we know, and God is patient.
Audrey Assad (via hope-and-fire)
The goal is to share the gospel with the unbeliever, and then step back and say, ‘God, I’ve shared your truth, but you’re the one who changes hearts.’
Ken Ham (via hope-and-fire)
Most people have no idea what God would make of them if they would only place themselves at his disposal.
St. Ignatius of Loyola (via hope-and-fire)
Listen, put it into your heart, my youngest and dearest son, that the thing that disturbs you, the thing that afflicts you, is nothing. Do not let your countenance, your heart be disturbed.
Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego (via hope-and-fire)
Your chief desire ought to be to slay your selfish will so that it neither seeks nor wants anything but to follow My gentle Truth, Christ crucified, by seeking the honor and glory of My name and the salvation of souls.
God to St. Catherine of Siena (via hope-and-fire)
Virtue humanizes and spiritualizes what is part animal in us. Vice brutalizes what is human and spiritual in us.
Anthony Esolen, Life Under Compulsion: Ten Ways to Destroy the Humanity of Your Child (via hope-and-fire)
hope-and-fire