I found a scrap paper while cleaning with various quotes scribbled on it that have been meaningful to me. It reminds me how powerful the written word can be. In an age that boasts of technology connecting us to every thought we might have, I am reminded that my brain sits with things and processes them long after I've forgotten the written work. So many of these quotes have become a part of me, a part of my theology. I remember re-reading a Donald Miller book only to realize I'd been vocalizing my underlinings as my own thoughts in previous years, after first reading his work. Oops. I suppose I should apologize for the oratorical plagiarizing, but perhaps that's exactly what authors hope to do in their work - communicate ideas in such a way that when a reader tastes them and resonates with it, they make them a bit their own.
Some favorites (so I can recycle that scrap paper ...)
"The wretched and miserable should turn to their Saviour first, yet they do not hope in Him until all their hope is exhausted." The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
"When God seems absent, he may be closest of all. When God seems dead, he may be coming back to life."
"The Israelites gave ample proof that signs may addict us to signs, not to God."
"But the Spirit whispers of a new reality, a fantasy that is actually true, one into which we will awake for eternity."
...from 'Disappointment With God' by Philip Yancey
"Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory."
William Barclay quote, ch. 21 of Yancey
"When there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either." Paul Tournier
"Thou thou with clouds of anger do disguise Thy face;
yet through that mask I know those eyes
Which, though they turn away sometimes
They never will despise." John Donne "A Hymn to Christ"
"Everything difficult indicates something more than our theory of life yet embraces."
George MacDonald
(I do have a feeling most of these come from chapter beginnings in Yancey's book...)
