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Madeleine LEngle Quotes

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We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to

We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.

Madeleine L'Engle
Believe, Heart, Light
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.172, Convergent Books

We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.

Madeleine L'Engle
Courage, Thinking, Bravery
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.58, Convergent Books

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.

Madeleine L'Engle
Birthday, Success, Nursing
Twitter post from Jan 3, 2018

What I believe is so magnificent, so glorious, that it is beyond finite comprehension. To believe that the universe was created by a purposeful, benign Creator is one thing. To believe that this Creator took on human vesture, accepted death and mortality, was tempted, betrayed, broken, and all for love of us, defies reason. It is so wild that it terrifies some Christians who try to dogmatize their fear by lashing out at other Christians, because tidy Christianity with all answers given is easier than one which reaches out to the wild wonder of God's love, a love we don't even have to earn.

Madeleine L'Engle
Christian, Believe, Broken

If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.

Madeleine L'Engle
Family, Honor, Important

But grief still has to be worked through. It is like walking through water. Sometimes there are little waves lapping about my feet. Sometimes there is an enormous breaker that knocks me down. Sometimes there is a sudden and fierce squall. But I know that many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.

Madeleine L'Engle
Grief, Feet, Water
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage”, p.144, Open Road Media

I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly.

Madeleine L'Engle
Faith, Prayer, Wings
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage”, p.79, Open Road Media

Because we fail to listen to each other's stories, we are becoming a fragmented human race.

Madeleine L'Engle
Race, Listening, Stories
Madeleine L'Engle (1989). “Sold Into Egypt: Joseph's Journey Into Human Being”, Shaw

Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.

Madeleine L'Engle
God, Atheist, Believe
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.30, Convergent Books

When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.

Madeleine L'Engle
Believe, Impossible, Kind

Growing up is a process that never ends. It isn't a point you attain so you can say, Hooray, I'm grown up. Some people never grow up. And nobody ever finishes growing. Or shouldn't. If you stop you might as well quit. What I have to tell you is that it never gets any easier. It goes right on being rough forever. But nothing that's easy is worth anything. You ought to have learned that by now. What happens as you keep on growing is that all of a sudden you realize that it's more exciting and beautiful than scary and awful.

Madeleine L'Engle
Beautiful, Growing Up, People

Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.

Madeleine L'Engle
People, Doe, Facts
Madeleine L'Engle's acceptance speech on receiving the Margaret Edwards Award (the American Library Association's Lifetime Achievement Award For Writing in the Field of Young Adult Literature) at the American Library Association's annual conference in Washington, D.C., gos.sbc.edu. June 27, 1998.

Like it or not, we either add to the darkness of indifference and out-and-out evil which surrounds us or we light a candle to see by.

Madeleine L'Engle
Light, Evil, Darkness
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “A Circle of Quiet”, p.61, Open Road Media

Nothing, no one, is too small to matter. What you do is going to make a difference.

Madeleine L'Engle
Differences, Making A Difference, Matter
Madeleine L'Engle (2013). “The Wrinkle in Time Quintet”, p.400, Macmillan

I wish that we worried more about asking the right questions instead of being so hung up on finding answers.

Madeleine L'Engle
Wish, Asking, Answers
Twitter post from Aug 03, 2012

The world has been abnormal for so long that we've forgotten what it's like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.

Madeleine L'Engle
Home, Heart, Long
Madeleine L'Engle (1978). “A Swiftly Tilting Planet”, p.26, Macmillan

In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own.

Madeleine L'Engle
Jobs, Real, Humility
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.55, Convergent Books

To pray is to listen, to move through my own chattering to God, to that place where I can be silent and listen to what God may have to say.

Madeleine L'Engle
Prayer, Moving, May
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.123, Convergent Books

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.

Madeleine L'Engle
Writing, World, Paint

The journey homewards. Coming home. That's what it's all about. The journey to the coming of the Kingdom. That's probably the chief difference between the Christian and the secular artist--the purpose of the work, be it story or music or painting, is to further the coming of the kingdom, to make us aware of our status as children of God, and to turn our feet toward home.

Madeleine L'Engle
Christian, Children, Home
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, p.135, Convergent Books

We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes...

Madeleine L'Engle
Dream, Sweet, Home
"The Rock That is Higher: Story as Truth". Book by Madeleine L'Engle, 1993.

If we commit ourselves to one person for life, this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.

Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Relationship, Moving
Madeleine L'Engle (2016). “The Irrational Season”, p.44, Open Road Media

But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.

Madeleine L'Engle
Art, Live Life, Creativity

We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world. We've come to the point where it's irresponsible to try to protect them from the irrational world they will have to live in when they grow up. The children themselves haven't yet isolated themselves by selfishness and indifference; they do not fall easily into the error of despair; they are considerably braver than most grownups. Our responsibility to them is not to pretend that if we don't look, evil will go away, but to give them weapons against it.

Madeleine L'Engle
Growing Up, Children, Fall
FaceBook post by Madeleine L'Engle from Nov 03, 2016

Man has a viewpoint, but God has the view.

Madeleine L'Engle
Men, Views, Viewpoints

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