redemption

They say the eyes are the windows to our soul; glass gateways that do little to conceal our true self. Yet, for me, they're also the narrators of our heart and give insight to our well-kept secrets... secrets I wanted to remain hidden.

If there is anything worse than evil, it is nothingness. At least evil has a form, and a voice, and a purpose, however depraved. Perhaps some good can even come out of evil: a terrible deed of violence against someone weaker may lead others to act in order to ensure that such a deed is not perpetrated again, whereas before they might have been unaware of the reasons why an individual might behave in such a way, or they might simply have chosen to ignore them. And evil, as we saw with the Blacksmith, always contains within itself the possibility of its own redemption. It is not evil that is the enemy of hope: it is nothingness.

What if our badness and mistakes are the very thing that set our fate and bring us round to good? What if, for some of us, we can't get there any other way?

We are all trophies of God__ grace, some more dramatically than others; Jesus came for the sick and not the well, for the sinner and not the righteous. He came to redeem and transform, to make all things new. May you go forth more committed than ever to nourish the souls who you touch, those tender lives who have sustained the enormous assaults of the universe. (pp.88)

Oh goodness infinite, goodness immense!That all this good of evil shall produce,And evil turn to good; more wonderfulThan that which by creation first brought forthLight out of darkness! Full of doubt I stand,Whether I should repent me now of sinBy me done, and occasioned; or rejoiceMuch more, that much more good thereof shall spring;To God more glory, more good-will to menFrom God, and over wrath grace shall abound.

We are no longer under the 'Law', but rather the Grace of God in Christ."~R. Alan Woods [2013]

Never forget what you were saved from.

Brokenness to redemption, where mercy and grace kiss both sides of our face.Brokenness where we are split open.Redemption where God knits us back together.Mercy when we don't get the punishment we do deserve. Grace when we get the lavish love gifts we don't deserve. So here we are.

He has the mistaken notion that a concern with grace is a concern with exalted human behavior, that it is a pretentious concern. It is, however, simply a concern with the human reaction to that which, instant by instant, gives life to the soul. It is a concern with a realization that breeds charity and with the charity that breeds action. Often the nature of grace can be made plain only by describing its absence.

it was times like these when a man in a desperate situation must take whatever madness is offered to escape the darker madness in which he finds himself trapped.

Turned out, monsters were capable of love after all. But it didn__ mean they should.

You can't let your light die out. Yours is the only light on my dark path. Without it, I will be forever lost.

We had given in to our vulnerability and cast down any pretenses that we were too strong to be weak.

We've peered into the deepest parts to see beyond what lies on the surface.

Renunciation isn't a moral imperative or a form of self-denial. It's simply cooperation with the way things are: for moments do pass away, one after the other. Resisting this natural unfolding doesn't change it; resistance only makes it painful. So we renounce our resistance, our noncooperation, our stubborn refusal to enter life as it is. We renounce our fantasy of a beautiful past and an exciting future we can cherish and hold on to. Life just isn't like this. Life, time, is letting go, moment after moment. Life and time redeem themselves constantly, heal themselves constantly, only we don't know this, and much as we long to be healed and redeemed, we refuse to recognize this truth. This is why the sirens' songs are so attractive and so deadly. They propose a world of indulgence and wishful thinking, an unreal world that is seductive and destructive. (142)

I don__ mind my friends calling me __hornes,_ but the fact of people calling me __rickly Thornes_ draws the line.

Do not dwell on past failures or it will ruin your future.

Love is such a powerful subject matter because it comes in so many different shapes and sizes. It's about timing, fate, failure, redemption.