Quote by Spurgeon

. . . Even you, poor trembler, will stand by and see the salvation of God and will be amazed at two things--your own unbelief and God's faithfulness. You say that the sea is before you, that the mountains are on either side, and the foe is behind you . . . but your God will lead you through the depths of the sea and put a song in your mouth that you never could have known if there had been no sea, no Pharaoh and no mountains to shut you in.

--found this quote in the oibtuaries. . .

Diary of an Old Soul (George MacDonald)

February 15

Therefore I make provision, ere I begin
To do the thing though gavest me to do,
Praying, Lord, wake me oftener, lest I sin
Amist my work, open thine eyes on me,
That I may wake and laugh, and know and see,
Then with healed heart afresh catch up the clue,
And singing drop into my work anew.

For a Young Child by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

A Better Resuurection by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

I HAVE no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
My harvest dwindled to a husk:
Truly my life is void and brief
And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall--the sap of Spring;
O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
Or cordial in the searching cold;
Cast in the fire the perish'd thing;
Melt and remould it, till it be
A royal cup for Him, my King:
O Jesus, drink of me.

The title the first and the last is also irrefutable proof that Jesus is YAHWEH, the Lord. These terms together mean that Jesus is the beginning, middle and the end for the Christian. Preach orthodoxy, or any form of doxy--if you have left out Christ, there is no manna from Heaven, no water from the rock, no refuge from the storm, no healing for the sick, no life for the dead. If you leave out Christ, you left the sun out of the day and the moon out of the night, you have left waters out of the sea and the foods out of the river, you have left the harvest out of the year, the soul out of the body, you have left the joy out of heaven, yea you have robbed all of its all. There is no gospel worth think of, much less worth proclaiming in Jehovah's name if Jesus be forgotten.

Charles Spurgeon

John of the Cross says the night of the sense is the crisis that initiates the movement from dependency on sense and reason to docility of the spirit.

St. John of the Cross

When we genuinely believe that inner transformation is God's work and not ours we can put to rest our passion to set others straight.

Richard Foster