To Love Quotes (page 103)
To know that our Father in heaven has ordained our pain is not a comfoftable truth, but it is comforting. That our pain has a loving and wise and all-powerful purpose behind it is better than any other view--weak God, cruel God, bumbling God, no God. To know that in his hands "this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison" (2 Corinthians 4:17) is profoundly reassuring.
John Piper
Lovely and unremarkable, the clutterof mugs and books, the almost-empty FigNewtons box, thick dishes in a bigtin tray, the knife still standing in the butter, change like the color of river waterin the delicate shift to day. Thin fogveils the hedges, where a neighbor dogmakes rounds. 'Go to bed. It doesn't matterabout the washing-up. Take this book along.'Whatever it was we said that night is gone, framed like a photograph nobody took. Stretched out on a camp cot with the book, I think that...
Marilyn Hacker