“... for our sake loosing within Himself the bonds of bodily birth, He granted us through spiritual birth, according to our own volition, power to become children of God instead of children of flesh and blood if we have faith in His Name (cf. Jn. 1:12-13). For the Savior the sequence was, first of all, incarnation and bodily birth for my sake; and so thereupon the birth in the Spirit through baptism, originally spurned by Adam, for the sake of my salvation and restoration by grace, or, to describe it even more vividly, my very remaking.” IfsFirstsChildrenChristianSpiritualSpiritNamesGraceBloodBirthSalvationSakeFleshGrantedOrthodoxSaviorHave FaithAdamSequenceRestorationIncarnationOrthodox ChristianChild Of GodBaptismCfsFlesh And BloodVolition Author:Maximus the Confessor
“I'm an American by birth, but I'm a Texan by the Grace of God.” GraceBirthGrace Of GodTexan Author:Larry Gatlin
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” HeartDonePainHoursCommonGriefGraceBirthAll ThingsListsAshes Book:The Road Source: The Road
“He also said we should carve in the year and place where I was born, but I said no. As a man dies many times before he's dead, so does he wend from birth to birth until, by grace, he comes alive at last.” MenShouldYearsDoeSaidLastsDiesBornGraceAliveBirth Author:Frederick Buechner
“The wrinkled man in the wheelchair with the legs wrapped, the girl with her face punctured deep with the teeth marks of a dog, the mess of the world, and I see - this, all this, is what the French call d'un beau affreux, what the Germans call hubsch-hasslich - the ugly-beautiful. That which is perceived as ugly transfigures into beautiful. What the postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin expressed as 'Le laid peut etre beau' - The ugly can be beautiful. The dark can give birth to life; suffering can deliver grace.” MenWorldGivingBeautifulFacesSufferingGirlDarkGraceDogBirthMarkUglyLegsTeethPainterMessWheelchairs Author:Ann Voskamp