Corrie Ten Boom said, “If a bird is flying for pleasure, it flies with the wind, but if it meets danger it turns and faces the wind, in order that it may rise higher.”

Bernard Brunstang believes that “people who have setbacks and trouble often emerge with values and priorities that are higher and nobler, more sensitivity and understanding of the difficulties of others, and a new appreciation of how much people mean to them.”

“Life is like a grindstone. Whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends upon what you are made of.”

Stan Buck tells the story about a little girl who, on their way home from church, turned to her mother and said, “Mommy, the preacher’s sermon this morning confused me.”

The mother said, “Oh! Why is that?

The girl replied, “Well, he said that God is bigger than we are. Is that true?”

“Yes, that’s true,” the mother replied.

“He also said that God lives within us. Is that true too?”

Again the mother replied, “Yes.”

“Well,” said the girl. “if God is bigger than we are and he lives in us, wouldn’t he show through?”

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to be as Jesus today to whomever You bring into my life and grant that my life will mirror Your beauty and Your love to them. And grant that they, seeing Jesus in me, will want him for themselves. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’s name, amen.”

1. 2 Corinthians 3:18 (TLB).