Helen Roseveare

"I found frequently that I climbed in glorious sunshine...my face set determinedly for the nearest peak I could see.  As I reached it, I revelled in the sense of achievement and victory and in the glorious view...Then, slowly, my imagination would be caught by the next peak ahead...and eventually the resolve would form to set off upwards again...

As I went down from the present peak into the valley between the mountains, I was often shadowed by the very peak I had been enjoying.  This I interpreted in a sense of failure and this often led to despair...I see now that I was wrong...The going down was merely an initial moving forward towards the next higher ground, never a going back to base level, so to speak.  The shadow was only relative after the brightness of the sun; the valley could provide a period of rest for working out the experiences previously learnt, a time for refreshment prepatory for the next hard climb.  Had I understood this meaning of the sunshine and shadow in my life rather than interpreting my various experiences along life's way as 'up' and 'down,' I might have saved myself many deep heartaches."

                                                                                                           

And Can It Be That I Should Gain?

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Clive Staples Lewis

"Imagine yourself a living house. [You ask God to make some repairs.] At first...He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on...But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of...You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace."    -Mere Christianity