My friend, Jackie, sent me an email this week with words that overflowed from her heart to the page.  It was all great, but as I read it again just now on another friend’s blog several lines jumped out at me and I just don’t want to forget them.  I will copy them here so that they will be printed in my blog book and I can find them for encouragement time and time again. . .

” I lash out in anger, sounding more like a wolf than a shepherd to three little lambs.  Trying to control perfection can only produce rage.  Ice cold or red hot, it fuels a rage one way or another.”

“They see the unseen – the invisible new mercies that give the grace to love, the strength to forgive and the courage to trust.  A hardened heart they refuse.  Though raw, aching and weary, their beauty glows softly in the dark.  ‘The world is not worthy of them.'”

“A woman who wages war to wait for the one who loves her is a rare splendor. . .She presses on to embrace the One who called her name.  Some say by longing for heaven, we deny the beauty of this life.  But we say the beauty of this life beckons us like a trail of crumbs through dense mine-filled forests toward the great feast we know lies on the other side.  We feel alone scattered to the corners of the earth, often hidden by the thick brush.  Yet we are cheered by knowing that our other sister-warriors are battling too in this same war toward the same promise.  ‘Life is a battle through enemy territory headed toward our heavenly home’ where we know our Lover meets us.   The great promise – the reality of what is but not yet.”