Lynn Austin

The war has changed you, too, Caroline. Your faith is stronger, your compassion deeper, your love more intense than ever before. It's as if all the qualities I saw in you and fell in love with have been refined and purified.

You have beautiful hair"... and she reached out to touch it, her bejeweled fingers gently caressing my head. A tear slipped down my cheek. I knew how the lepers felt when Jesus touched them and made them whole again.

In the past I had often tried to escape the grown-up world of sorrow through my imagination- dreaming that a handsome young lieutenant would ride to my rescue or that a great empresario would discover my musical talents and whisk me away. I had envisioned knights in shining armor and happily ever after scenes to escape from rules or boredom or pain; including a vision of my mother walking through our front door whole and well again. Now I knew that a lifetime of escape led to a life like Aunt Bertie's. My imagination was a gift, but I had to live in the real world. My eyes had been opened this summer to poverty and crime and abuse and I needed to use my imagination not to escape, but to help people like Irina and Katya, to make my own contribution as the women in the women's pavilion had done. I couldn't do it in the same way Jane Adams and my grandmother and Aunt Mat were, but I would find my own way and my own time.

I have met people who truly do not believe in God, and they feel no anger when they see suffering. They are indifferent to it. But you and I are angry. Anger is not indifference. I blamed God because He took my family. But I couldn__ get revenge from God, so I turned my rage against other people. I wanted revenge. Someone must pay.___ou__e wrong._ Helen said, wanting desperately to believe that he was. __ told you, I no longer believe in God.___hen why are you so angry with Him?_ His eyes were so sorrowful that Helen had to look away. She was unable to reply. __ou blame me and my country for your losses Miss Kimball. And I blame you and your country. But you and I are people, not countries. Did you kill my wife? My child? Would you put a gun to their heads and shoot them, or take away all of their food and watch them die? No, of course not. Neither would I kill someone you loved if I met him face to face. Wars come from bitterness and hatred. They are started by nations without face. But wars end when the hatred ends in the hearts of people like you and me. That is why I ask you to please forgive me.

Love is like candy floss. you crave it and it looks very promising, but if you try to satisfy your hunger with it, there is nothing. Only a sweet aftertaste - if you're lucky.

I listened to God and to my husband, not the the enemy's whispers, not to other people's opinions.

If He strips us of all our own resources, we just might learn to lean on Him. And to start praying again.

Depression, I've learned, is sometimes caused by anger that we keep locked up inside.

Belief in Yahweh doesn't come with your mind. It comes with your heart. When you only believe in things you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands, it is idolatry.

Joy explodes throughout the book of Psalms like fireworks, and is the most potent anti-missile defense system there is.

Belief in Yahweh doesn't come with your mind. It comes with your heart. When you only believe in things you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands, it is idolatry...To have faith in Yahweh is to know that there is a realm of the spirit beyond the comprehension of our minds... Trusting in Molech... or trusting in your own wisdom and intellect - there's no difference in God's eyes. It's all idolatry.

Faith don't come in a bushel basket, Missy. It come one step at a time. Decide to trust Him for one little thing today, and before you know it, you find out He's so trustworthy you be putting your whole life in His hands.

Hmm. Relationships between fathers and sons can be notoriously difficult, especially for two men who are as different as you and your father are.""Yes, and he's also the king--that makes our relationship impossible.

Often, it'a not one great, dramatic thing that God asks us to do but hundreds of little everyday things. If we want to be used by Him, if we're ready to be used and aren't all tangled up with your own plans and projects, then He'll show us the work He has for us.

You know what I wish? I wish I could put time in a bottle and throw it into the ocean. Then I would have forever to spend with you. I wouldn__ need air to breathe or food to eat. Holding you in my arms would be all the food I would need. Having your love would be the only air I would need to breathe.