Janet Erskine Stuart Quotes
To go into the presence of God is like going out into the freshness of the morning air.
Every friendship with God and every love between God and a soul is the only one of its kind.
Days full to the brim; serious work, not languidly done, not sadly done (that would be taking back from the completeness of our gift), but wholehearted work; and if we are tired at the end of such a day, then blessed fatigue; we have all Eternity to rest, and only this short life to labour and to give.
Joy comes of utter contentedness with God's will for us now.
Our prayer should invade the whole day. The great thing is to find what suits us, not what suits another.
We are all God's property, and our life must be one wild bird's song of praise, one wildflower's face looking up to God.
The spirit of prayer is the soul of the soul and its life. God is in every sense the home of the soul.
We take our children as a trust and train them for eternity. As trustees, we are given charge of these minors.... We are responsible under the trust to keep them from evil and train them to good; to "whatever things are true, modest, just, holy, lovely, of good fame," in which there is any virtue or praise of discipline. Remember that the principal end is training to good; keeping from evil is not an end but a condition. A soul kept from evil for a time, not trained to positive good, to discern, to act, to judge, to do good, would leave us quite unfit for life. Whereas one leaving us even young and undeveloped, but having a positive love for good, an attraction for it and some practice, is fitted for life, at least to begin the battle. Our education would be quite a failure if we turned out nonentities without colour or character or individuality.
In prayer it is often the very best just to leave yourself face to face with God without saying anything.
Joy follows sorrow...as the flower breaks from the thorny branch, not the branch from the flower.
You must not take a failure so much to heart. You must cultivate hopeful courage in God's service, and remember all our life there must be fails and failures from time to time to keep us steeped in humility and contrition, so "off again, on again, away again."
The little opportunities [for being humble and loving] are treasures, they are like gold dust and we should have an enthusiasm for them.
Beware of extremes, beware of inhuman efforts, of violent measures, of all that drives you off your balance.... Don’t attempt the impossible.... Take yourself as you are, whole, and do not try to live by one part alone and starve the other. Control, but do not kill....
Joy and sorrows are meant to exist in the same soul. They are meant to follow each other in regular succession. We should never attain sanctity if we had nothing but joy.
The unsimple ways and manners are found in the intermediate layers, those who are uneasy and anxious to be something that they are not and so become unreal. So, a simple manner belongs to those who are at ease in being themselves, not anxious to be taken for anything else, content and not afraid.
God never sends a cross without a great grace for all concerned, even if they do not see it at the time.
There must be pain and darkness and unsearchable mysteries and insoluble problems, but there again, in case of doubts, hold on. Wait for God to explain Himself in eternity. It would be childish to think that we could understand in time. But never let go of the belief that God is the All Good.
Look at God, think of God, your own God and Father, and everything will get straight and calm down.
God knows, God guides, and out of all our puzzles and failures and efforts He brings good, and that good is eternal.
In prayer alone you will find counsel, courage, patience, sweetness, firmness and the power of managing the minds of others.
Patience and perseverance are virtues that He will crown in you, and He evidently means you to win these crowns.
That inward worship of God which comes of keeping one's soul quiet, and offering each thing to Him as it arrives, is a great work in His sight.
Supernatural simplicity belongs to those who are not only one with themselves but one with God. It is more than the 'simple life,' it is the life of union. God is simplicity itself--one act; the nearer we come to God, the less complicated we become.
Quiet down your vivid imagination to give ear to God by a spirit of recollection and the familiar habit of the Presence of God.
The higher we want to fly, the greater the risk, but that is the glorious part of it. The great uncertainties in which we trust God, the breathless risks we run, with no assurance but our great trust in God, that seems to me to be of the essence of our life and its beauty. This will grow upon you; you will get your balance in the risk and get to love it.
God always goes beyond our expectations in helping us.
Your letter was a consolation to me, for it is so good to find a fault frankly faced and humbly owned. I look on it as a grace for you to have had this experience—it reminds me of what I used to be told as a child—‘It takes twelve falls to make a horsewoman'—so I should not like you to ride without a fall. One learns thus. Tighten your hold on God again.
On Sincerity:
One more lesson must be mentioned, the hardest of all to be learnt – perfect sincerity. It is so hard not to pose, for all but the very truest and simplest natures – to pose as independent while being eaten up with human respect; to pose as indifferent though aching with the wish to be understood; to pose as flippant while longing to be in earnest; to hide an attraction to higher things under a little air of something like irreverence… It is very hard to learn to be quite true; that entails more personal self-sacrifice than almost any other virtue.
Where will our courage, confidence, joy and generosity stem from? The practical conclusion is to let God work God's way upon us, and to correspond with God's grace. The inner life is all in that. God working, we are corresponding, listening to His word that speaks within, commanding, inviting, praising, reproving, asking. That is our real life, going on uninterruptedly, which, if we are too busy with exterior things, we lose sight of. An irreparable loss - there is so much to be done, and no time to lose. The work is done in silence, tranquility and recollection, and without them it is not done at all.
It is a vain expectation to hope that self-control and unselfishness will come forth at command in a crisis, when they have not been practiced in the small occurrences of daily life. The rare crises of daily life reveal us to ourselves, but we are made in the small victories of defeats every day.
It was at Christmas that our Lord, as it were, took His first plunge into the heart of our troubles, of our difficulties, of our experiences, into the heart of the life we are leading. And that, not as someone standing at a distance, but as thrown into the stream—feeling the shock, the human astonishment at what took place around Him—feeling the poverty, the pain, the isolation in which He was left. He loves that we should sympathize with Him in it.
Let us desire that knowledge of God which will purify our mind from pride and error and strengthen the habit of faith... Let us learn all we can about God—and what is more interesting, more satisfying to the human mind? Let us be eager for anything that may add to our possession of faith.
Some minor gifts of God in our life: there are whole series and groups of them, concerning which we do not cultivate enough spirit of observation and thanksgiving.
The greatest harm the devil can do anyone is make her believe her past is beyond repair, and that the opportunity has been let slip and that it is too late. Say to yourself; this will pass; confide in Him, and smile, yes, smile in spite of it all.
The only way to govern is to love; we must have a trust, a deep, personal, individual affection for those we serve.
One day of fervour is worth a thousand tepid days.
God is so simple that truth, sincerity and simplicity are the nearest copy we can make of Him.
Overflowing with good will, devotedness, activity, we let ourselves too often be carried by the current. We do not think, learn, ripen, take responsibility to hear and, remaining children, we reach the 'high seas' of mature life without sufficient preparation for its more difficult navigation.
Really, it is the Lord who carries the cross, for He knows how to make the soul content with little or no consolation and always to find strength in the words..."Thy will be done."