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

We're saved

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

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

Deeper meaning

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

~Vincent van Gogh

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

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

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

A 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

Keep love in your heart

Zandenplas, Nunspeet

"Keep love in your heart.
A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."
~Oscar Wilde

Rather be in the Mountains

Innocent and the beautiful

"The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time."

~W.B. Yeats

Jesus loved the broken

Noorderheide, Elspeet

"Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world,

where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children

in your beautiful little house,

where you have no minority groups anywhere near you.

Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved, and Jesus loved the poor

and Jesus loved the broken."

~Rich Mullins

Giving

Cliffs of Kilkee

"Our greatest fulfillment lies in giving ourselves to others."

~Henri Nouwen

May the Lord keep you

Cervinia

"May the Lord bless you and keep you.

May the Lord make His face to shine upon you, 

and be gracious to you.

May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, 

and give you peace."

~Numbers 6

From the ashes a fire shall be woken

 Jachthuis St. Hubertus, Hoge Veluwe

"All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king."

~J.R.R. Tolkien

Produces Hope

"More than that,

we rejoice in our sufferings,

knowing that suffering produces endurance,

and endurance produces character, and character produces hope."

~Romans 3:3-5

Every walk with Nature

The Burren, Ireland

"In every walk with Nature one receives far more than he seeks."

~John Muir

To the Rabbi

"The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi."

~Brennan Manning