“. . . the one sin I have come to fear more than any other is certainty.  Certainty is the great enemy of unity.  Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.  Even Christ was not certain at the end. ‘Eli, Eli lama sabachtani?’ He cried out in his agony at the ninth hour on the cross. ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt.  If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith” ( Robert Harris, The Conclave, p. 93-94).

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“‘The grace is in the struggle.’ As a pastor who has walked with people through dark times, I have learned to be careful not to say these words too quickly.  Saying ‘the grace is in the struggle’ at the wrong time can sound like, ‘The grace is the struggle’ or ‘The struggle is for the purpose of you finding grace.’  While there may be truths in these two sentences, they are not as deep as the truth I have found in the words, ‘The grace is in the struggle.’ And I suppose this is the key. I have found grace in the struggle.  No one else could find it for me. And I cannot find it for anyone else. They must find the grace. You must find the grace. Or, I suppose, you, in the struggle, must be found by Grace” (Heidi De Jong, in a post on the blog, The Twelve).

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“We don’t lose God’s love when we stumble or trip or stray from the path. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. But that doesn’t mean God’s love is a purely sentimental thing. There is tough-love too. God’s love woos and it weans, it draws and it drives, it pulls and it pushes. God wants more for us, but he won’t pour it on our heads or give it to us automatically. That would short-circuit the character forming process and more importantly, betray our humanity” (Jon Baily in Love, a post in Renovare Weekly Digest for Oct. 13, 2017).

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“Let us thank God for those who are scarred by trauma and who struggle with depression, whether they be talking donkeys [as in Winnie the Pooh], shell-shocked soldiers, burnt-out caregivers, or lonely children. Sadness, films like Goodbye Christopher Robin remind us, can be an appropriate response of a tender heart made for joy but confronted with a fallen and broken world. That sadness can give root to the weeds of bitterness and despair; it can also, however, be transformed through love and imagination into a source of comfort and joy for all those who are able and willing to receive it as such” (Kenneth R. Morefield reviewing Goodbye Christopher Robin, a Fox biopic about A.A. Milne, in Christianity Today Newsletter, October 17, 2017)