Excerpt taken from Passion & Purity by Elisabeth Elliot:
"'We can be full of joy here and now even in our trials and troubles.' [...] 'Taken in the right spirit these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort produces a steady hope, a hope that will never disappoint us.' [...] The effect of my troubles depends not on the nature of the troubles themselves but on how I receive them. I can receive them with both hands in faith and acceptance, or I can rebel and reject. [...] The words 'full of joy here and now' depend on the words 'taken in the right spirit.' You can't have one without the other. Taken in a spirit of trust, even loneliness contributes to the maturing of character, even the endurance of separation and silence and that hardest thing of all, uncertainty, can build in us a steady hope."
I know I've posted this before...or something quite similar to it...but I was reading this book again and was humbled yet encouraged by her words. Praise the Lord for timely and yet gentle reprimands.
Here's the address to my other post on loneliness: http://wreesespiecesnthoughts.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html
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