Will lead you closer

"Dare to love and to be a real friend.

The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer

to God as well as those whom God has given you to love."

~Henri Nouwen

Go together

Achter het Oude Stadhuis, Marktplein, Amersfoort

"Beauty and sadness always go together."

~George MacDonald

Divinest comfort, Jesus doeth all things well

Amersfoort

All the way my Savior leads me

What have I to ask beside?

Can I doubt His faithful mercies?

Who through life has been my guide

Heavenly peace, divinest comfort

Here by faith in Him to dwell

For I know whatever fall me

Jesus doeth all things well

~Fanny J. Crosby, 1867

Beyond which life cannot rise

Vermenton, Bourgogne

"There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life,

and beyond which life cannot rise.

And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive,

and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive."

~Jack London, The Call of the Wild

But you keep on loving

Dieppe

"If you try to have faith, you will be attacked by doubts you never knew you were capable of.
But you keep on believing, even if you fall, even if you struggle with doubts, you keep on believing.

And if you live a life that is marked by hope, by the belief that God is good, and there is goodness in the world that awaits us, you'll be disappointed. You'll be crushed, even, sometimes.
But you keep on hoping.

And if you choose to love, you will be misunderstood, you will be betrayed, you will be rejected by the people who most desperately need the love you have to offer.
We are blemished people, and in order to love anybody,
in any way, we have to expose that part of us that we'd rather keep hidden.
Our own selfishness, our own fears, our own hangups, and it's embarrassing. So humiliating.
But you keep on loving.

Many of us are obsessed with becoming rich, many of us are obsessed with becoming smart.
But all of our wisdom, all of our great insights; we see in part and we prophesy in part..
But when that which is perfect comes, that which is in part is done away with.
But There are three things that will remain: faith, and hope, and love.
Make sure you live in those."
―Rich Mullins

And He knew us

Rouen

"God loves us completely.

And He knew us at our worst before He ever began to love us at all."

~Rich Mullins

Not a divine idea

"My idea of God is not a divine idea.

It has to be shattered time after time.

He shatters it Himself.

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."

~C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Who Wander

"Not all those who wander are lost."

~J.R.R. Tolkien

We're saved

"We are not saved because we're good.
We're good because we're saved."
~Rich Mullins

My heart is overwhelmed

"From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed:

lead me to the rock that is higher than I."

~Psalm 61:2

How our Father listens to us

"Bear in mind, children, that they listen to you because you are kids—not because you are right.

That's how our Father listens to us."

―Rich Mullins

Past tears

Dieppe, Normandy

"Past tears are present strength."

~George MacDonald

What it had to be

"This life has shown me how we're mended and how we're torn 

How it's okay to be lonely as long as you're free 

Sometimes my ground was stoney 

And sometimes covered up with thorns 

And only You could make it what it had to be."

~Rich Mullins

Pleasure in the pathless

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

   There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society where none intrudes,

   By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

   I love not man the less, but nature more."

~George Gordon Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods

Deeper meaning

"It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper meaning."

~Vincent van Gogh

Larger hope

"The small and even overpowering pains of our lives are intimately connected
with the greater pains of Christ.
Our daily sorrows are anchored in a greater sorrow, and therefore a larger hope."
~Henri Nouwen

C.S. Lewis

Amerongen

"I need Christ, not something that resembles Him."
~C.S. Lewis, A grief observed

We have nothing to lose

Kasteel Amerongen, Mei 2018

"The ragamuffin gospel says we can't lose, because we have nothing to lose."

~Brennan Manning

Marriage of the soul

"It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, 

and gives birth to imagination."

~Henry David Thoreau

Yesterday and today and forever

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."

~Hebrews 13:8

Keep them

April 2018

Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo ©

"I do not ask that You take them out of the world,
but that You keep them from the evil one."

~John 17:15

Who truly see

Huis Doorn

"We have to be in trouble,

before we remember for what is essential.

Those who truly see you, are the ones you need."

~John O'Donohue

I know Who holds the future

"I don't know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future!"
~Billy Graham

Come away

Ginkelse Heide, april 2018

"Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while."

~Mark 6:13

Tasting the coming joy

"While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys,
foreseeing the coming sorrows,
Jesus empowers people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows,
tasting the coming joy."
~Timothy Keller

Cleanse his soul

Ah! Happy they whose hearts can break

And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his plan

And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

May Lord Christ enter in?"

~Oscar Wilde

from Ballad of Reading Gaol

The Way of the Cross

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,

through which the world has been crucified
to me, and I to the world."

~Galatians 6:14

( hbj - 50 jaar! )

The only lesson

Hoorn

"To suffer without complaint is the only lesson we have to learn in this life."

~Vincent van Gogh

Some good

Enkhuizen

"There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for."

~J.R.R. Tolkien

He is able

Hoorn

"Because He himself suffered when He was tempted,

He is able to help those who are being tempted."

~Hebrews 2:18

Love never fails

~  40  ~

"Love is always supportive,

loyal, hopeful,

and trusting.

Love never fails."

~1 Cor. 13:7,8a

Spirit and life

"It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.

The words that I have spoken to you,

are spirit and life."

~John 6:63

You'll bet beat up real bad

"So go out and live real good and I promise you'll get beat up real bad. 

But, in a little while after you're dead, you'll be rotted away anyway.

It's not gonna matter if you have a few scars.

It will matter if you didn't Live."

~Rich Mullins

Come to Me to have life

Plansee, Tirol

"You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.

These are the very Scriptures that testify about Me,

yet you refuse to come to me to have life."

~John 5:39

Every house is built by someone

"For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything."

~Hebrews 3:4

In the hope

"And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know

that suffering produces perseverance;

perseverance, character; and character, hope."

~Romans 5:3,4

You are Yourself the answer

"I know now, Lord, why You utter no answer.
You are Yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away."
~C.S. Lewis

Heart of wonder

"May you experience each day as a sacred gift

woven around the heart of wonder."

~John O'Donohue

Be with you

And may the joy of Jesus be in you

And may the joy of Jesus be with you

And may you know the joy of Jesus

And may the joys of Jesus be in you

May the grace of my God be with you

May the grace of my God be with you

May you know the grace of my God

And may the grace of my God be with you

May the love of my Lord be with you

May the love of my Lord be with you

And may you know the love of my Lord

And may the love of my Lord be with you

And may you dance and laugh and sing

May you know the warmth of His embrace

May you feel the brush of angel wings

Like the wind upon your face

May the joy of Jesus be with you

May you know the joy of Jesus

And may the joy of Jesus be with you

~Rich Mullins

Hospital for sinners

Noordwijk aan Zee

"The Church is not a museum for saints ..

but a hospital for sinners."

~Morton Kelsey

I believe what I believe

"And I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am,
I did not make it, no it is making me."
~Rich Mullins

Gain what he cannot lose

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
~Jim Elliot

No enemy but time

"The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time."
~W.B. Yeats

Not an adventurer

"I am not an adventurer by choice but by fate."

~Vincent van Gogh

Rivers in the desert

De Blauwe Kamer, Rhenen, 14 jan 2018

"I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."
~Psalm 43:19

He knew us

"God loves us completely.

And He knew us at our worst before He ever began to love us at all."

~Rich Mullins

Happy those

"We die daily.
Happy those who daily come to life as well."

~George MacDonald