Clarkson Quotes

God will never give you anything you can't handle, so don't stress.

Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you.

How hard can it be?

Everything changes, but beauty remains.

Life's too short to be a pushover.

His world looked like a storm. I was going to be its center.

No, no, no. There's no such thing as cheap and cheerful. It's cheap and nasty & expensive and cheerful.

Music isn’t just heard, it is felt.

Everyone says I'm like the girl next door...Y'all must have really weird neighbors

Speed has never killed anyone, suddenly becoming stationary… that’s what gets you.

My experiences remind me that it's those black clouds that make the blue skies even more beautiful.

If you are clinically insane, by which I mean you wake up in the morning, and you think you are an onion, this is your car, (about the BMW X3).

Pies mean Thanksgiving and Christmas and picnics.

I have a rule of thumb that allows me to judge, when times is pressing and one needs to make a snap judgment, whether or not some sexist bullshit is afoot. Obviously, it’s not 100% infallible but by and large it definitely points you in the right direction and it's asking this question; are the men doing it? Are the men worrying about this as well? Is this taking up the men’s time? Are the men told not to do this, as it's letting the side down? Are the men having to write bloody books about this exasperating retarded, time-wasting, bullshit? Is this making Jeremy Clarkson feel insecure? Almost always the answer is no. The boys are not being told they have to be a certain way, they are just getting on with stuff.

It’s ignorant to think you know everything about a person. There’s many different sides to everybodys personality and there’s just different colours to a personality.

Pick the weeds and keep the flowers.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Confidence is seen, not heard.

And if someone does figure it out and starts a rumour, we'll just deal with it," Polly says. "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, and all that crap." "Do you ever dream of the day when your life can no longer be adequately summarized by Kelly Clarkson songs?" I ask. "All the time," Polly says.

And when he broke, it was a miracle he managed to find all the pieces of himself again.

In the absence of biblical conviction, people will go the way of culture.

America has developed a pie tradition unequivocally and unapologetically at the sweet end of the scale, and at no time is this better demonstrated than at Thanksgiving.

Hollywood movies are designed for 15-year-old youths from North Dakota who, intellectually speaking, are on equal terms with a British zoo animal.

Why is the forecast so bland? Why instead of 'stormy' don't they just say the sea's 'a frothing maelstrom of terror and hopelessness'?

Today when you nurture, love and meet the needs of your beloveds with beauty, it will make a difference in how they face their whole day.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger. —Friedrich Nietzsche (and Kelly Clarkson)

Boredom forces you to ring people you haven’t seen for eighteen years and halfway through the conversation you remember why you left it so long. Boredom means you start to read not only mail-order catalogues but also the advertising inserts that fall on the floor. Boredom gives you half a mind to get a gun and go berserk in the local shopping centre, and you know where this is going. Eventually, boredom means you will take up golf.

We are going to have to stop penalising people for making that most human of gestures- mistake

it’d be like choosing between Jeremy Clarkson and Piers Morgan in a bare-knuckle death match. There ought to be a way both could lose.

I am convinced, no, more like convicted, that to claim a few still spaces in which beauty is found and silence kept, is to open the door to God.

.. international hand of freindship. A cigarette

Racing cars which have been converted for road use never really work. It's like making a hard core adult film, and then editing it so that it can be shown in British hotels. You'd just end up with a sort of half hour close up of some bloke's sweaty face.

It could be argued that there is an element of entertainment in every pie, as every pie is inherently a surprise by virtue of its crust.

She can take a year to read something, whereas I like a book that becomes more important in my life that life itself. When I was in the middle of 'Red Storm Rising' by Tom Clancy - which was not selected for the Man Booker shortlist - you could have taken my liver out and fed it to the dog. And I wouldn't have noticed.

I always wanted to be a hero--to sacrifice my life in a big way one time--and yet, God has required my sacrifice to be thousands of days, over many years, with one more kiss, one more story, one more meal.

He was composed, polite, and intelligent. All the things a prince should be.

We have been careless with our pie repertoire. The demise of apple-pear pie with figs and saffron and orengeado pies are tragic losses.

Life is a story, and each of us has but one tale to live as valiantly as we can.

[A Bugatti Veyron is] quite the most stunning piece of automotive engineering ever created....At a stroke then, the Veyron has rendered everything I’ve ever said about any other car obsolete. It’s rewritten the rule book, moved the goalposts and in the process, given Mother Nature a bloody nose.

I wore a groove in the kitchen floor with endless trips to the fridge, hoping against hope that I had somehow missed a plateful of cold sausages on the previous 4,000 excursions. Then, for no obvious reason, I decided to buy a footstool.

It is natural to quarrel, to be selfish, to live a small-minded life. It is supernatural to love unconditionally, to serve others, to live a life of vision and faith.

If the precious, limited hours of my day are used bit by bit in scanning information, I will have less and less time for the attentive, slow, good work of creativity, conversation, and connection that real people and real homes require.

One of the marks of a godly woman is that she takes responsibility for her soul's need for joy and delight. A woman is a conductor, who leads the orchestra of her surroundings in the songs and music of her life. God is a God of creativity and dimension, and so He is pleased when we we co-create beauty in our own realm, through the power of His Spirit. It was a profound realization when I understood that I could become an artist with my very life.

People like us we gotta stick together Keep your head up nothing lasts forever.

Watching the abuse and worry he dealt with firsthand made me see how time and fear could shape a person into someone who is, by most accounts, evil.

The First Law of Pies: 'No Pastry, No Pie.

Make no mistake, redemption is local. Our ordinary is where the kingdom of heaven comes.

Because of you I never stray too far from the sidewalk Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt Because of you I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me Because of you I am afraid

I therefore have to use The Force. And weirdly, this doesn't work very well. I don't understand why, because on the last census, I put my religion down as Jedi Knight...

Pick your head up nothing lasts forever, sing it for the people like us, the people like us!

The Second Law of Pies: they must be baked, not fried (or boiled, or steamed).

The homemade pie has been under siege for a century, and surely its survival is endangered.

…it seemed appropriate that I should develop some kind of illness. This is a good idea when you are at a loose end because everything, up to and including herpes, is better than being bored.

You are part of God’s story on earth,” my parents whispered in our ears, “You can be like Aragorn or Frodo or Sam in the battles of the world, you can bring beauty like Jared (in The Journeyman by Elizabeth Yates), or discover something new like George Washington Carver. What kind of hero do you want to be?

What we need is the healed capacity to imagine and believe the profound goodness of the future, to stand in the light of a happy ending whose power reaches into our present and draws us forward in hope.

All people need a place where their roots can grow deep and they always feel like they belong and have a loving refuge. And all people need a place that gives wings to their dreams, nurturing possibilities of who they might become.

I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly I'll do what it takes til I touch the sky And I'll make a wish, take a chance, make a change And breakaway Out of the darkness and into the sun But I won't forget all the ones that I love I'll take a risk, take a chance, make a change And breakaway

My life would suck without you

This is what should be meant by people power. The power for people to choose which of the government’s petty, silly, pointless laws they want to obey. And which they don’t.

God is the Lord of human history and of the personal history of every member of His redeemed family.

But in my mind tractors are like penises. They cannot be too big.

Like every big organisation these days, the BBC is obsessed with the wellbeing of those who set foot on its premises. Studios must display warning notices if there is real glass on the set, and the other day I was presented with a booklet explaining how to use a door. I am not kidding.

A woman who reads is a woman who knows she must act: in courage, in creativity, in kindness, and often in defiance of the darkness around her. She understands that life itself is a story and that she has the power to shape her corner of the drama.

Lego, however, is always opened and then left lying around so adults have something to tread on when they are prowling around around the house at two in the morning, in bare feet, looking for the source of a noise.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger Stand a little taller Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone What doesn't kill you makes a fighter Footsteps even lighter

Everybody's got a dark side. Do you love me? Can you love mine? Nobody's a picture perfect, but we're worth it, you know that we're worth it.

What dosent kill you makes you stonger

Every day in each inch of space, each rhythm of time, each practice of love, we have the chance to join God in coming home, in living so that we make a home of this broken and beautiful world all over again. Love is enfleshed in the meals we make, the rooms we fill, the spaces in which we live and breathe and have our being.

These people go on to tell us that mobile phones will cook our children’s ears, that long-haul flights will fill our legs with thrombosis and that meat is murder. They want an end to all deaths – and it doesn’t stop there. They don’t even see why anyone should have to suffer from a spot of light bruising. Every week, as we filmed my television chat show, food would be spilt on the floor, and every week the recording would have to be stopped so it could be swept away. ‘What would happen,’ said the man from health and safety, ‘if a cameraman were to slip over?’ ‘Well,’ I would reply, ‘he’d probably have to stand up again.

God sees you. He made you, knows you, and loves you. You can trust Him. Part of our issue with not fully surrendering our lives to Jesus is because we don’t really know if we can trust Him.

Recently, I spent eight days in a car with my co-host from Top Gear James May, who has a notoriously flatulent bottom. But because he was living on army rations the interior was always pine fresh and lemon zesty.

On accepting adversity in our lives: Always it is initiated by an act of will on our part; we set ourselves to believe in the overruling goodness, providence, and sovereignty of God and refuse to turn aside no matter what may come, no matter how we may feel. I mistakenly thought I could not trust God unless I felt like trusting Him. Now I am learning that trusting God is first of all a matter of the will. I choose to trust in God, and my feelings eventually follow.

God desires to work supernaturally through normal people who are willing to follow Him wholeheartedly and reflect His glory.

It's so good because I love you Rita. It's good because you love me back. No matter the time it took. When it's right, it's right.

Speed has never killed anyone - suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you.

The real risk to faith is not to wrestle...

Surely we should try to save something that, when done well, is not only a supreme example of the art of cooking, but a dish that encapsulates humankind's entire culinary history?

If you never left again, I would still spend the rest of my life missing you.

Mother, who had never missed a chance to fulminate against the evils of our time including privatisation, Jeremy Clarkson, and pay-day loans.

We’ll listen to old-school Kelly Clarkson power songs and sing until we lose our voices.” “That is not a good plan.” Celeste turned and peered into the back of the car.

..I didn't yet understand that I could trust what a fallen leaf or an autumn feast, a lilting song or the coming of spring was speaking to me as true. I didn't see that these small glories had been offered to me as communion with my Maker.

There is no single way to serve God, but the point is this: We each have only one life to live to tell a story about Him, about His ways, about His love. And if we are Christ followers, then God calls us to use our gifts, to exercise our faith, and to become salt and light right where we are.

I'll try. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, right?" "You're quoting Kelly Clarkson?" "No, Nietzsche," Harper replied with a quiet laugh. "Wouldn't have pegged you as a Kelly fan." "Never. And if you ever mention this conversation, I'll deny all knowledge of it." - Harper & Trent

Miss you?" He grated the incredulous question, dropping his mouth to her temple. "You left me without a soul. I can barely remember the days since you left. They passed without me feeling a single thing. Because you are feeling for me. You're the only thing that keeps me from being numb. Twice in my life you've turned me back into a living, breathing man, and missing you... missing you, Peggy, doesn't even begin to cover it. You revive me.

No really. If you only have seven years left, that means the Reaper will be dropping round for tea and buns in about 61,000 hours from now. You therefore shouldn’t be wasting time by pootling to the garden centre at walking pace. So come on, grandad. The clock’s ticking. Pedal to the metal. Or you’ll be in your flowerbed before the plants you bought.

I think Jonathan loved you before ever Clarkson did, Martitia. That first day when I lifted you down from the gig in front of our house here at Centre, Jonathan's face showed a new heaven and a new earth.

I often must sacrifice my own needs and desires for the purpose of giving my children what they need and modeling for them the depths of Christ's love. "...make myself available in the routine tasks and myriad interruptions of daily life b/c I believe it is God's will for me to serve my family through them.

Let's be perfectly clear, shall we. The fox is not a little orange puppy dog with doe eyes and a waggly tail. It's a disease-ridden wolf with the morals of a psychopath and the teeth of a great white shark.

Hence, once the director calls cut on a take, May will often roar, ‘Get me pussy,’ and Munn will appear with the furiously mewing orb of animals. This is not to be mistaken for anything else. He’s not Donald Trump.

I blamed this on Kelly Clarkson. On Kelly-Freaking-Clarkson. The angry man standing across the kitchen island looked like he was about to throttle me. I had visions of large hands gripped firmly around my neck shaking me like a rubber chicken. His eyes flashed with frustration and I cursed Kelly Clarkson straight to the grave.

It is time," said the Lord Pilot, "to see this calamity to its end." Spoken in Archaic English: the words uttered by Thomas Clarkson in 1785, at the beginning of the end of slavery. "I have set my will against this disaster; I will break it, or it will break me." Ira Howard in 2014. "I will not share my universe with this shadow," and that was the Lord Pilot, in an anger hotter than the nova's ashes. "Help me if you will, or step aside if you lack decisiveness; but do not make yourself my obstacle, or I will burn you down, and any that stand with you -

When someone once asked me just what it was that my parents did that made me believe in God, without even thinking I said, “I think it was French toast on Saturday mornings and coffee and Celtic music and discussions and candlelight in the evenings . . .” Because in those moments I tasted and saw the goodness of God in a way I couldn’t ignore.

Sometimes celebrating, enjoying, and laughing seem almost inappropriate in a world as broken as ours. We look around and see panic on the faces of everyone we see. Tragedies become ordinary. How, in good conscience, can we laugh and celebrate and eat pizza? I believe we must celebrate - because celebration is one of the most effective weapons we have against the darkness of our day. The real grief of the state of our world is the pervasive fear that settles in our hearts.

You ruined the sky for me today, Rita,” he said gruffly. “It’s flat-out mediocre without you up against it. I reckon it always will be now.

Everything was insane. She was forcing him to consider light and shadows, when he’d only ever dealt in black and white. And she was the light. Shining bright enough to flay him

We were not created for disaster nor formed for destruction, and to lament our pain is to honor the beauty God intended and yearn toward its restoration.

It doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone.

Now I am invincible, no I ain't a scared little girl no more. Yeah, I am invincible. What was I running for?

heroism begins with a challenge and a choice—to fight the dragon, to pay the debt, to tell the truth, to act rightly when the cost is high.

There is a mystery inherent in a pie by virtue of its contents being hidden beneath its crust.

Before there was wedding cake, there was bride pie.

Keeping house—picking up those messes one more time—is a service of worship to God as we craft a place of beauty and comfort for all who enter our sanctuary of His very presence.

The Fifth Key Lizbet Keaton’s Breakup Playlist “Good 4 U”—Olivia Rodrigo “All Too Well” (Taylor’s version)—Taylor Swift “If Looks Could Kill”—Heart “You Oughta Know”—Alanis Morissette “Far Behind”—Social Distortion “Somebody That I Used to Know”—Gotye “Marvin’s Room”—Drake “Another You”—Elle King “Gives You Hell”— The All-American Rejects “Kiss This”—The Struts “Save It for a Rainy Day”—Kenny Chesney “I Don’t Wanna Be in Love”—Good Charlotte “Best of You”—Foo Fighters “Rehab”—Rihanna “Better Now”—Post Malone “Forget You”—CeeLo Green “Salt”—Ava Max “Go Your Own Way”—Fleetwood Mac “Since U Been Gone”—Kelly Clarkson “Praying”—Kesha

I took ten days off and by 11 o’clock on the first morning I had drunk fourteen cups of coffee, read all the newspapers and the Guardian and then… and then what? By lunchtime I was so bored that I decided to hang a few pictures. So I found a hammer, and later a man came to replaster the bits of wall I had demolished. Then I tried to fix the electric gates, which work only when there’s an omega in the month. So I went down the drive with a spanner, and later another man came to put them back together again. I was just about to start on the Aga, which had broken down on Christmas Eve, as they do, when my wife took me on one side by my earlobe and explained that builders do not, on the whole, spend their spare time writing, so writers should not build on their days off. It’s expensive and it can be dangerous, she said.

From the moment we take our first breaths, our days are numbered, so how we live matters. The decisions we make—the important ones and, yes, the mundane ones too—they all matter. Everyday decisions add up to form the life we live and the legacy we leave behind.

The most important gift you can give your child is to help them begin a walk of faith with the God of the universe. From the moment your children arrive in your home, you are teaching them how to see the world, what to consider important, what to seek, what to love. As a mother, you have the opportunity to form your home and family life in such a way that God’s reality comes alive to your children each day.

and although the W came along in the tenth century, modern Germans still seem to manage perfectly well by using a V instead. Except when the German managing director of Aston Martin tries to say ‘vanquish’.

How we need more “homemakers” so that all who live in this transient, contemporary world might have a place to belong, to feel loved and valued, to serve and be served, to give and receive and celebrate all that is good. So

Our individual personalities are a gift of His design so that we might add color and variety to the world. And He can use our unique combination of circumstances—even the painful ones like mental illness—for our good and His glory.

When I look into her searching blue eyes, I am filled with wonder and an urgent sense of desire. I want to be a better woman, to walk this path of life well beside her, to point her towards God’s fingerprints and kindness, to live a full, abundant life so that she, too, can know that she is free to live into hers.

You know how Kelly Clarkson sings, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? I’ll do you one better. What doesn’t kill you makes your soul wiser. You learn from hard situations and use them to inform future ones. On the Other Side, Spirit says it’s mostly rainbows and Skittles, so your soul can’t learn things with the same impact that it does here.

I’ve said it before and I’m going to say it here again, now. Nothing brilliant has ever resulted from a meeting.

The sacrifice is wasted if the attitude of serving is self-concerned and complaining in nature. How we serve, in other words, is just as important as what we serve.

Mix an anorexic body with a heart made of pure fire and you are going to go with a savagery that's hard to explain.

I love you, too. I love you, too. I want to stay right here with you, I don't want to leave.

When I saw you on the side of the road, Rita, I saw my wife, I knew.

Had this man ever been out of his depth for a single second in his life? Had she just dragged him into the deep end? How intoxicating…and how good it felt. So good. So good

Although our culture seems to worship being busy, constant activity will slowly undermine our perspective on life and kill our souls.

I am aware, of course, that many men do hate the sight of their wife and children. Doctors even have a name for these people: 'anglers'.

The only possible defence for God against the charge of making a world riddled with suffering and violence is that He didn't,’ writes my Oxford tutor, Michael Lloyd.

Look for other women with whom you can connect as well. So many women are isolated—with no friends as neighbors, no family close by, no kindred spirits.

Flirting is the oil that lubricates the engine of ingenuity and wit

The hero tales, the epic myths, the tales of quests and dragons, knights and journeys can enter the pain and confusion of a child’s mind with a healing clarity.

My parents read to us morning and night, we read novels before bedtime, we read devotions in the morning, and we read picture books or adventure tales in the afternoon.

Jesus didn’t come just to save our souls; He came to redeem every part of our lives.

Stories shape our existence because we recognize in a deep part of ourselves that life itself is a story. The tale of the world opens with a sort of divine "once upon a time" or "in the beginning... The gospel itself comes to us in narrative form and one of its great tenets is that we have the chance to join the story of the Kingdom come in this world, to be agents in the ongoing story of redemption, what Rowan William call the "freedom of a sort of authorship.

Home is to be a safe place, a refuge for all who enter, a protection from the harm and storms of the world. Yet often or even daily we open our doors -- usually via television or the internet -- to ideas and images that can damage our faith, abuse our hearts and minds, sear our psyches, and tear apart our peace. Home should be a place where, behind its doors, one should expect to find protection and safety from all the harms of life, including voices that do not speak truth or wisdom. Only the foolish would invite just anyone to enter the door of their home.

If you have time for television but not for personal time with the Father, then you don’t understand the value of your relationship with Him. If you spend hours on the Internet each week but rarely open your Bible, you are not committed to the honor of knowing and listening to Him.

Even NASA’s most respected engineers have admitted to me, in private, that designing and building a supersonic airliner was a greater technological challenge than putting a man on the moon.

God doesn’t offer explanation; but oh, he offers his own heartbreakingly beautiful self. God breaks into Job’s darkness by actually allowing himself to be summoned by Job’s cries for justice.

In the olden days it was easy to make a television work.You plugged an aerial cable into the back, then bashed the top with your fist until, eventually, Hughie Green stopped jumping up and down.

Home is the place in which we picture, day after ordinary day, the fact that love will endure, that grief will be healed, that joy, one day, will last forever and the celebration will never end.

Book Girl is meant to last you beyond a first read. By theming the chapters and their accompanying lists to different seasons of experience or growth, I hope you will find this a continuing resource.

To know yourself as an agent in the story of the world, one able to bring light and goodness in the midst of suffering, is a profoundly empowering knowledge, one that I believe comes to every woman who reads.

Always, my only hope and my only strength and my only way to cope has been an utter abandonment to God, knowing that if He doesn't work, if He doesn't move in the midst of us through His Holy Spirit, if He doesn't take my paltry fish and loaves and make it into more than it really is, I do not have a hope of making it. I relinquish my desire to control and yield this moment, this day and hope that He will show up.

I don’t always want to see and be seen at the best parties, because I’ve done that for too many years. I want something real and true.” I pause and shoot him a sideways look. “I want a real partner, not a boyfriend who brings home a twenty two year old twink to make up a threesome for my birthday present.” “What the fuck?” I look at him and start laughing helplessly. “I just wanted the latest Jeremy Clarkson biography.

Owning your life—your actions and decisions, and their consequences—must begin with a healthy view of yourself that is based on what God thinks of you. Once you listen to His voice, your self-perception will change.

By the end of the week, Alicia Clarkson became Queen Alicia MacKellen, mate to Gavin MacKellen at a ceremony witnessed by the entire MacKellen pack. Hanna cried. Kaity cried. Jo smirked, begrudgingly. Hart smiled on.

If every morning you look at your child as a gift from God, a blessing that He has bestowed today, and thank Him for that blessing, you will approach your children with love, patience, and grace. You have to bow your knee and say, "God, you really are good and you knew exactly what you were doing when you gave me this child.

Will you love me? Even with my dark side? Don't run away. Don't run away. Just tell me that you will stay. Promise me you will stay. Don't run away. Don't run away. Just promise me you will stay. Promise me you will stay.

Nor is the difference slight in moral disposition between a barbarian, such as the man described by the old navigator Byron, who dashed his child on the rocks for dropping a basket of sea urchins, and a Howard or Clarkson; and in intellect, between a savage who uses hardly any abstract terms, and a Newton or Shakspeare. Differences of this kind between the highest men of the highest races and the lowest savages, are connected by the finest graduations.

it is easy for parents to pass on unnecessary guilt, shame, and insecurity to their children because we fear the rejection of critical and judgmental people in our lives. So if I can help other parents understand the profound importance of accepting children as they are, perhaps I can save those children from some of the anguish I felt for many years.

It is vitally important for women to learn how to think biblically for themselves instead of being enslaved to other people’s thoughts and opinions. To truly follow God with everything in our lives, we must learn to develop discernment.

Do they think that, if left to our own devices, we’d all park on zebra crossings for a year? If they do, it means they don’t trust us. And if they don’t trust us, then the relationship has broken down and it’s time for some civil unrest.

The next day I called my neighbouring farmers to say I was going to have a coronary, and they all had the same piece of advice. I had to accept whatever happens, because that’s farming. They also said I had to be patient, which is not possible. I can’t be patient. It’s not in my DNA. It’s a bit like telling Nicholas Witchell he has to be a Moroccan cage fighter.

Maybe it’s an attention-span thing. Music is now the backdrop to our lives rather than an event in itself. We put on a CD while we’re doing something else. I can’t remember the last time I put on an album and listened to it in a chair with my eyes closed.

Own your faith. Take responsibility for the miracles God wants to do in and through your life. No one else can faithfully show the people He has entrusted into your care what it means to live by faith. No one else can accomplish the work He created you to do.

He allows Job to question and grieve, to yearn and weep. But what he offers Job is not an explanation but an encounter. For Job is summoned to behold God’s goodness in the staggering pageant of creation, one so mighty in its loveliness that at its end, Job considers himself answered.

Now is the time; today is the day. Own your life. Heaven will tell your story throughout eternity. May you live one worth telling. May you leave a legacy of vibrant faith and a pathway for others that is lavished with generous love and the kiss of God’s favor each step along the way.

English minister David Clarkson preached one of the most comprehensive and searching sermons on counterfeit gods ever written.113 About idolatry he said, “Though few will own it, nothing is more common.” If we think of our soul as a house, he said, “idols are set up in every room, in every faculty.” We prefer our own wisdom to God’s wisdom, our own desires to God’s will, and our own reputation to God’s honor. Clarkson looked at human relationships and showed how we have a tendency to make them more influential and important to us than God. In fact, he showed that “many make even their enemies their god . . . when they are more troubled, disquieted, and perplexed at apprehensions of danger to their liberty, estates, and lives from men” than they are concerned about God’s displeasure.114 The human heart is indeed a factory that mass-produces idols.

The cyclist is immunized against all dangers: One may call him a scoundrel, parasite, swindler, profiteer, it all runs off him like water off a raincoat. But hit him with your car and you will be astonished at how he recoils, how injured he is, how he suddenly shrinks back: "I've been runover!

America has developed a pie tradition unequivocally and unapologetically at the sweet end of the scale, and at no time is this better demonstrated than at Thanksgiving in November. It seems that the country goes pie-mad at this time, and the traditional pies reflect that this is harvest season.

The feel of my mother’s warmth behind me as she read is one of the first things I can remember—the safe anchor of her body and the music of her read-aloud voice the ocean on which my small consciousness sailed into power through stories of music and brave maidens, feasts and castles, family and home.

(...)Clarkson fue a ayudar a Brynne y Marie en la cocina mientras Gabrielle y Elaina parecían hacerse buenas amigas hablando de libros— especialmente uno muy popular sobre un multimillonario muy joven y su obsesión con una mujer aún más joven... y el sexo. Habían montón de escenas de sexo eróticas en el libro, aparentemente en cada página. Neil y yo nos miramos con simpatía el uno al otro, y no tuvimos absolutamente nada que añadir a la conversación. Es decir decir, ¿quién lee esta basura? ¿Quién tiene tiempo? ¿Por qué incluso leer sobre sexo en un libro cuando se puede tenerlo en la vida real? No lo entiendo.

In England on a hot day, women are happy to walk around with their bra straps showing. In Paris, they don't shave their armpits. And you just can't mention Germany and style in the same book, let alone the same sentence. It's the same story in America too, where the Farrah Fawcett haido of 1975 still reigns supreme. In Italy, even the policemenists look like they've just come off a catwalk. One I found, standing on a rostrum in the middle of a Roman square, was immaculate, as was his routine. Each wave of the hand, each toot of the whistle and each twist of the body was Pans People perfect. Never mind that the traffic was completely ignoring him, he looked good, and that's what mattered. Looking good in Italy is even more important than looking where you're going.

Managing our stress and our rest is a sign of living wisely. Refueling as a way to find joy, to create pleasure, and to celebrate life in the midst of all its demands fills our hearts with renewed hope. When we take the time to breathe, listen, and rest from the daily grind to see miracles bubbling up in our lives.

In our hurry-up, multiple-option, online society, we can always leave someone or something we find difficult—a person, a place, a church, a friendship. There is always another option. But real community, long-term friendship, and marriage are precious gifts only to be kept by a commitment to remain in the circle of love they create.

I saw a star and its light was like something woven of hope and music, and the shimmer of it was a voice crying out to my spirit to keep hold, to take joy, and for a moment the whole of my suffering seemed unmade. The darkness became the false thing and the joy of that light, it was the truest thing I had ever known. How can we believe what beauty speaks to us in the darkness of mental illness and cancer and abuse and death? Because beauty calls to us with the voice of God. We are answered not with argument or angry demands for obedience but with the presence of Immanuel, God here with us in the shadows. What beauty reveals is the intimacy of the divine in our grief. God gives us beauty, not as his argument but as his offering - a gift that immersed us in something that allows us to touch hope, to taste healing, to tangibly encounter something opposite to disintegration and destruction. Where suffering has made God abstract and distant to us, where brokenness leaves us with unanswerable questions, beauty allows us to taste and see God’s presence as he breaks into the circles of our inmost grief to remake the broken world. Beauty offers us a theodicy of encounter.

Our humblest moments are the spaces in which God's reign returns to earth, and I believe that the beauty we claim and create in response to that in-breaking life can be a radical defiance of evil. We are called to courageous creation, for the making of beauty is our gentle and holy defiance of the forces of disintegration and the powers of darkness.

That which we most desire, we worship as our god; for that which is chiefly desired is the chief good in his account, who so desires it. And what he counts his chief good, that he makes his god. Desire is an act of worship . . . and to be most desired is that worship, that honor, which is due only to God. To desire anything more or so much as the enjoyment of God is to idolize it, to prostrate the heart to it, and worship it as God only should be worshipped. He only should be that one thing desirable to us above all things. . . .

One of the main reasons she didn’t date was fear of rejection, fear of someone she actually liked seeing the worst in her. Or, worse, the best in her—and deeming it lacking.

Eventually I got the cow into position – although when I say I, there is some televisual evidence to suggest it was Kaleb

This is my life; these are my fingerprints; I'm unique; this is what I want to do. You worry about your own front porch and what's happening in your own world.

Starting now, Rita, for each minute it takes to put that thing in the oven, I'm going to give your incredible arse a slap. You understand me?

I want to be the man who steals it. All day, every day. Forever. Stay with me right here.

I would make a new bribe every day if I thought staying her would make you happy.

Beauty is about picturing God’s unchanging goodness and daring to bring it into my own small, dusty days.

In Italy, you sometimes get the impression they'd be happier to lose the Ppe than lose their right to drive like maniacs.

love Africa. Wish it didn’t have to be this way, but if we weren’t here, the French would take over this fortress in the blink of an eye. And everybody’s doing it. The British. The French. The Dutch. The Americans. Even the bloody Africans have been mixed up in the trade for an eternity.” “That doesn’t make it right.” “If we didn’t take the slaves, other Africans would kill them. Butcher them live. At least we provide a market, and keep them alive.” “If you stopped, the market would wither.” “You have not been to England, so let me tell you something. Ninety-nine Englishmen out of one hundred take their tea with sugar. We live for our tea, cakes, pies and candies. We live for the stuff, and we will not be deprived.” “But you don’t need slaves to make sugar,” I said. “In the West Indies, only the blacks work in the cane fields. Only the blacks can stand it.” “You could do something else with this fortress.” “What, like your beloved John Clarkson in Freetown?” I nodded. Armstrong pounded his fist on a table. “Has the Colony in Freetown produced a single export? Where is the sugar cane? Where is the coffee? Are you exporting boatloads of elephant teeth or camwood? You’re not even growing corn, or rice. You have no farms under cultivation. You aren’t even self-sufficient.” I wasn’t ready for this argument. My mind circled around, looking for a response. “There is no profit in benevolence,” Armstrong said. “None. The colony in Freetown is child’s play, financed by the deep pockets of rich abolitionists who don’t know a thing about Africa.

It is hardly surprising that to this day New England is considered to be the pie capital of America, whose inhabitants traditionally eat (sweet) pie for breakfast. Apple pies in particular became deeply embedded in the history of America - associated with the old country, the new country and the pioneering spirit, and indelibly identified with the sense of nationhood and patriotic sentiment.

I’m so glad you created this place. It’s going to be a town landmark, and it’s due to your hard work.” Lord, Jasper wanted to shake her. Her words were genuine, but they weren’t coming at the right time. They were unwelcome when good-bye was so close on the horizon. “I appreciate that. Everything your family did tonight.” A cannonball materialized in his stomach, dragging him down, down. He didn’t want anyone there to witness when he hit bottom. Especially her. “But this is where I let you go, Rita. I need you to go. I can’t look at you anymore without making a fool out of myself.” Rita

I began to picture my children’s hearts as treasure chests of a different sort, and I vowed to fill them with intrinsic treasures: the best stories, memorized Scripture, priceless images of classical art, excellent books, memories from great feasts enjoyed together and special days celebrated, great Bible stories and wisdom passages, plus heart photographs of love given, holidays cherished, lessons learned.

A pie is only as good as its pastry, and one of the delights of a good pie is the contrast in texture between the crisp pastry and the filling - whatever it might be. In a perfect pie, each component is independently perfect - the mouthfeel of the pastry (buttery, flaky, crumbly) and the mouthfeel of the filling (rich, unctuous, tender, sticky, crunchy, etc.); and the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

To address this, we must wage a war on the militants. First, we must make it an offence, punishable by many years in jail, to ride a bicycle in anything other than what I like to call home clothes. Cycling shops selling gel for your bottom crack and outfits with padded gussets will be raided by the police and the owners prosecuted. This way, cyclists will be stripped of their uniforms and made to look like human beings.

We are asked to shape our lives, our time, our attention by habits and rhythms radically different from the windblown fury of the broken world. This means an entirely alternate shape of life, not just the subtraction of screens and distractions but the embrace of prayer, of daily wonder, of listening, of trust, of celebration that roots us moment by moment in that deep, watchful quiet that ushers us into the presence of God.

But my parents understood that the world that they made within the walls of our house was what constituted home. So I grew up in spaces framed by art and color, filled with candlelight, marked by beauty. I grew up within a rhythm of time made sacred by family devotions in the morning and long conversations in the evening. I grew up with the sense of our daily life as a feast and delight; a soup-and-bread dinner by the fire, Celtic music lilting in the shadows, and the laughter of my siblings gave me a sense of the blessedness of love, of God's life made tangible in the food and touch and air of our home. It was a fight for my parents, I know. Every day was a battle to bring order to mess, peace to stressful situations, beauty to the chaos wrought by four young children. But that's the reality of incarnation as it invades a fallen world....What my parents-bless them-knew...is that to make a home right in the midst of the fallen world is to craft out a space of human flesh and existence in which eternity rises up in time, in which the kingdom comes, in which we may taste and see the goodness of God.

I felt like half a heretic to admit that The Lord of the Rings kept me believing in redemption or that Aslan made God real to me when I was sick of church. I felt guilty when a novel made me feel closer to God than a psalm.

I will grant you, however, that the jet fighter does look better than a combine. Other things that look better than a combine include most wheelbarrows, your chest freezer, the marabou stork, the Chrysler PT Cruiser and Kim Jong-un’s hair.

I’ve noticed that ‘news’ is not what’s happened. It’s what’s happened on camera. If a herd of tigers runs amok in a remote Indian village, it’s not news. If a gang of wide-eyed rebels slaughters the inhabitants of a faraway African village, it’s not news. But if it’s a bit windy in America, it is news. Because in America everything that happens is recorded. I find myself wondering if last week’s Israeli raid on a Turkish ship in a flotilla carrying aid to Gaza would have had the coverage it did if the battle hadn’t been captured on film. And likewise the racing driver who broke a leg after crashing in the Indy 500. It only became a big deal because we could watch the accident from several angles in slow motion.

Influenced by the thought patterns of machines, my own mind cranks along, unable to rest, habituated to the disembodied, unresting online atmosphere. But the constant stream of information isn’t helping me to think more deeply, to contemplate, to have the long-considered knowledge that becomes wisdom. Rather, it is conditioning me simply to glean information and then move on. As author Nicholas Carr wrote, “The Internet is an interruption system. It seizes our attention only to scramble it.”[3]

would like to see a fund set up that does nothing but pay for great public buildings, follies, laser shows, towers, fountains, airships, aqueducts. Big, expensive stuff designed solely to make us go ‘wow’. I even have a name for this fund. We could call it the lottery.

Then there’s the biggest problem of them all – the problem of being in an Audi TT when you are not called Angela. I do not know why it can be driven by only people named Angela, but that’s a fact and there’s nothing we can do about it. If you have a TT and you aren’t called Angela, you have the wrong car.

God is active and present in every moment of our lives, but too often we are so caught up in how we ought to be rather than allowing ourselves to be swept up into the whirlwind of the Spirit. God desires that we learn to play again, to experience Him like little children do, open in wonder to the vastness and endless wonder of Him.

Have you ever felt a stirring in your heart as a touching story brought tears to your eyes or as you heard a soaring symphony or a captivating song on the radio that opened a new window in your soul? Maybe you have felt a similar exhilaration while watching a sunset, camping out under the night sky, or holding a newborn babe. Something inside of you quickened, and for a moment, some heavenly beauty connected your inner self with the divine. C. S. Lewis referred to such experiences as joy. These are remnants and reminders of the perfect world God designed for us to live in—the shadow of places He longs to take us to, the reality of the other world He’s preparing for us.

We live in an age that further drains and complicates our relationship with time by making our lives a ceaseless round of unbounded activity. In the modern world, we are increasingly less cognizant of the ancient rhythms of day and night, star and season, and less aware of the way those cadences influence our bodies and minds and allow us the boundaries of rest we need for healing. Electricity means we can banish the shadows and extend our days almost indefinitely. Insulated as we are by technologies of all sorts, caught up in the world of our screens, we are no longer as aware of cold and heat, summer and winter as a repeating symphony that reflects the real seasons of our own bodies and souls.

Most people can bend over to pick stuff up without thinking, but it’s no longer possible for me. If I bend at the hips, I get a jarring pain in my kidneys, and if I bend at the knee, I know I will not be able to get up again. This is a problem, because the ability to bend over in farming is as important as the ability to do strangling in the special forces.

I came up with the best pastime in the history of man. What you do is find an aerosol tin of spray adhesive, such as you would use to stick posters to a wall. You then lie in wait and when a wasp flies by, you leap out and give it a squirt. Bingo. One minute it’s flying; the next it’s tumbling silently out of the sky with a confused look on its stupid little face.

If there has never been a farm shop, then there should never be a farm shop. Especially if it’s run by someone who, like me, has lived in the area for only twenty-five years. I bet when Alexander Fleming invented penicillin, the village elders ran around saying that diarrhoea had been a part of rural life for hundreds of years and that they wanted to make sure it stayed that way.

We have to learn to lean into life as something beautiful even if it is not exactly what we expected. Trusting that God works all things together for the good despite the challenges we face is a gift of worship we give to God. Acceptance with humility must eventually come to each of us if we are to please God and not always fight against the limitations of our own family pattern.

—A MOTHER’S PRAYER— Father of Encouragement Thank you for taking the time to show love to your disciples by affirming and encouraging them. Help us remember that our well-aimed words will carry life to the hearts of our children. Teach us to extol their positive characteristics whenever we can and to resist the temptation to use words only for correction. Give us lips that speak grace and that show the heart of your love through the things we say. Amen

Make a list of some things your children like you to do with them but aren’t necessarily fun for you—playing a board game on the floor with a young child, going outside to throw a ball, sitting down with a child to read his or her creative story or to look at an artistic creation, and so on. Commit to saying yes to their requests instead of no, knowing that if you invest in what is important to them, they will be open to believing in what is important to you.

Everything I have ever bought is in my car. People say it’s a skip and disgusting, and refuse to get in there. That’s one advantage. Another is that last week, I needed a headache pill and it was simply a case of rummaging under the seat until I found one. Because it’s so full of junk, I always have everything I could conceivably need. A Biro, a refreshing drink, lots of loose change, all sorts of maps, an iron lung, and so on. I kid you not. There’s even a wetsuit in there.

if you have any money in a savings account, all you’ll be able to watch in the coming months is the value of those savings going down and down and down as inflation bites. Eventually, you won’t even have enough to buy a pack of Lurpak. Whereas if you buy something beautiful, now, you’ll be able to look at that instead. Sure, you’ll be hungry and cold but you’ll be surrounded by stuff that gives you pleasure, which is better than being hungry and cold and surrounded by nothing at all.

A woman who reads is a woman who has been prepared to accept the truth that beauty tells, to embrace the good news that imagination brings, the promise of joy that greets us in the happy endings or poignant insights of the novels we love. She has learned to glimpse eternity as it shimmers in story or song, to receive the satisfaction of a happy ending as a promise. She has come to recognize the voice of love speaking in the language of image and imagination and to trust what it speaks as true.

A challenging career suddenly seemed more productive to me because I could measure the results of my work. These precious little ones had endless needs. They were busy little sinful creatures who demanded all of my body, time, life, emotions, and attention! As much as I loved my children, I often felt like a failure. Surely someone else could do a better job with these precious ones than I. And what exactly was I supposed to be accomplishing anyway? Was I wasting my time? What had this husband, who professed to love me, done to me?

I think God is out there in the dark right past the spotlight, watching me perform this song called life. He knows I'm under-qualified, scared,not good enough, not even normal. But I don't think He's waiting for mistakes or counting the mess-ups. I think He's a Parent waiting to jump to His feet in applause. And when it's all done, when I'm finally walking toward Him, I don't think He is even going to remember the keys I missed or the mistakes I made. Instead I think He is going to run to embrace me and say, "I'm so proud of you. You were amazing! I love you so much.

Each of us has a different life puzzle to assemble. The choices you make in the midst of your life journey do have eternal consequences. Yes, you can throw the pieces at God in anger and say, “I do not like the life You have given me, and I refuse to live within these limitations with a humble heart. You have made me a victim. You have ruined my life. I will choose to live in darkness.” If that is your choice, the puzzle of your life will remain fragmented and separated, with holes in the picture. However, if you choose to bow your knee and submit to the varied circumstances of your life, God will do miracles. If you choose to trust and develop your integrity and an inner standard of holiness that isn’t dependent on cultural standards, the puzzle pieces will begin to come together. No matter what your limitations are—health issues, financial problems, a difficult marriage or divorce, a loss of friendship, death of a dream—your life is meant to be filled to the brim with the potential of God’s blessings. But in order to thrive and heal, you must accept any limitations by faith, trust in His faithfulness each step of the way, and wait for His grace so you can live a faithful story right in the place you find yourself.

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Jesus Himself acknowledged that when we go into our world, we are being sent as sheep among wolves—even in the church at large. Everyone is at a different level of maturity. When I begin spending time with a new friend, I have learned to be aware of warning signs to avoid long-term hurt. If a woman is constantly critical of others; carries lots of drama; tells me secrets and then always says, “Don’t tell anyone”; is fearful, gossips, or is not humble but defensive when corrected, I see these as cautions.

Redemption was a word I couldn’t quite comprehend at that point. Having heard it all my life, I associated it with what happened to sin-blackened hearts, but I wasn’t sure what it meant for good little God-fighting girls like me. I hadn’t yet understood it as the goodness of God invading my most intimate moments of depression, taking the shards of my broken self and setting about the work of new and mended creation. I still thought redemption was one big event that God did, not the whole of my daily story transformed by his generous life. But one thing I knew. I could not find it unless I took God’s hands in mine once more.

God’s goodness comes to us amidst the battle and dust of our own suffering, our own long defeat. God always arrives with healing. But he is humble and meek, a king who comes in through the back door of our hearts not to conquer and raze our imperfections away but to hold and heal us by the intimacy of his touch, his presence here with us in the inmost rooms of our suffering. The power of God is radically gentle, never rough with our needs or careless with our yearning. God is fixed upon the restoration of our whole selves and souls, not just the bits that everyone else can see. Yet the very tenderness of his power is something we sometimes treat as his weakness or cruelty because we crave a more visible result. The healing kind of power is not the sort we’ve been taught to respect by existence in a fallen world where power just means brute force. We want the swift and the visible: illness zapped away, money in our hands, brilliant doctors, prosperous lives, and conversion stories by the thousands. We crave visibility and approbation and health and big crowds that make us feel important enough to forget the frail selves we used to be. When we pray for God to come in power to save us, we often picture a scenario in which God invades our lives as the ultimate mighty man to banish our frailty and make us something entirely other than we are, capable of the will and force whose lack we so deeply feel. But God cradles and cherishes our frailty, and that is where the true power of his love is known. I always think it intriguing that in the Gospels Jesus seems far less interested in the faith and hope at work in broken people than merely the healing of their bodies. For I think God knows there is no real healing until our hearts are healed of their fear, our minds cleansed of doubt. Broken bodies, shattered hopes, suffering minds, terrible pasts - they leave us deathly ill with the twisted belief that love can never be great enough to encompass the whole of the story. We feel that we must subtract or conceal part of ourselves if we are ever to win the love of other people or God himself. We are diminished in our own eyes by our suffering, taught to despair of our dreams, to give up our hope that God will come with goodness in his hands. So God creeps in, gentle, and we know his touch because we are not discarded or dismissed, but healed. He comes to unravel our self-doubt, to untangle the evil we have believed, to call us back from the dark lands of our insecurity. He calls us by name and wakes us from sleep so that we rise to ask what this kind and precious King commands, and so often his command is simply to open our hands so that they may be filled with his goodness. For when God arrives as the healer, we learn anew that the anguished hopes we carry are held within God’s hand like the hazelnut of Mother Julian’s vision. The story he weaves for us may look radically different from what we thought we desired, but when it arrives, we will recognize it as the intimate gift of a love whose will for us is always so much greater than our own.