#holy

I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom. ↗

— Edgar Allan Poe

#alchohol #drinking #drugs #loneliness #melancholy

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. ↗

— Anonymous

#jesus #spiritual #the-holy-bible #life

Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#paganism #life

But little or great, suffering accepted and offered to Our Lord produces peace and serenity. When it is not accepted, the soul is out of tune and its internal rebellion is shown externally in gloom or bad temper. We have to make a conscious decision to take up and carry the little Cross of every day with determination. Suffering can be sent to us by God to purify many things in our past life or to strengthen our virtues and to unite us to the sufferings of Christ our Redeemer, who, in his innocence, suffered the punishment due to our sins. ↗

— Francis Fernandez

#life

I am my heart’s undertaker. Daily I go and retrieve its tattered remains, place them delicately into its little coffin, and bury it in the depths of my memory, only to have to do it all again tomorrow. ↗

— Emilie Autumn

#love #melancholy #love

Nobody ever gets what they want when it comes to love. ↗

— Scott Turow

#love #melancholy #love

Oh, but once my memories had pulsed with the blood-heat of life. In desperation, I forced myself to recall that once, I had walked with kings and conversed in languages never heard in this land. Once I had stood at the prow of a Sea Wolf ship and sailed oceans unknown to seamen here. I had ridden horses through desert lands, and dined on exotic foods in Arab tents. I had roamed Constantinople’s fabled streets, and bowed before the Holy Roman Emperor’s throne. I had been a slave, a spy, a sailor. Advisor and confidant of lords, I had served Arabs, Byzantines, and barbarians. I had worn captive’s rags, and the silken robes of a Sarazen prince. Once I had held a jeweled knife and taken a life with my own hand. Yes, and once I had held a loving woman in my arms and kissed her warm and willing lips...Death would have been far, far better than the gnawing, aching emptiness that was now my life. ↗

— Stephen R. Lawhead

#despair #holy-roman-emperor #memories #death

Though sleep was dearly needed, it was not welcomed, for even in sleep I was tormented. ↗

— Dave Moore

#frantic-search #god #holy-spirit #hope #jesus

For Christians it's always a love game ... that He is love itself ... Indeed, some have suggested that one way of understanding the Spirit is to see the Spirit as the personal love which the Father has for the Son and the Son for the Father. ↗

— N.T. Wright

#love #love

Chastisement leads to the acceptance of God’s will. [. . .] Chastisement leads to the fellowship of God’s Son. The will of God out of Christ is a law we cannot fulfil. The will of God in Christ is a life that fills us. [. . .] Chastisement leads to the enjoyment of God’s love. [. . .] Chastening is the school in which the blessed lesson is learnt that the will of God is all Love, and that Holiness is the fire of Love, consuming that it may purify, destroying the dross only that it may assimilate into its own perfect purity all that yields itself to the wondrous change. [. . .] And faith can only grow by exercise, can only thrive in trial: when visible things fail, its energy is roused to yield itself to be possessed by the Invisible, by the Divine. ↗

— Andrew Murray

#chastisement #holy-in-christ #change