A Different Solution

Enjoy these thought-provoking bits from a wonderful autobiography I recently finished:

“As the days passed in the ward, I began to realize what a tragedy it would be if Christians were all healed and never went to the hospital. People are so vulnerable in hospitals and willing to talk. And how good if there were a sick Christian in every ward.”

[This from the author of several beloved children's books, such as Treasures of the Snow.]

"We would have changed their circumstances, but we would not have changed them. God's solution is sometimes different. He does not always lift people out of the situation. He himself comes into the situation, as Christ the eternal man once entered this world and in a sense came to stay. He does not pluck them out of the darkness. He becomes the light in the darkness, the peace in the midst of the conflict, the spirit's riches in the midst of poverty and loss and physical degradation. Right there in the desert, he gives beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."



"When he [Jesus] purposes to build, he seeks for a ruin. When he plans to plant a garden, he starts in the desert."

– Patricia St. John in her autobiography, "An Ordinary Woman's Extraordinary Faith"