Peace Like a River

Okay, now that I've posted about So Brave, Young, and Handsome, I feel like it's silly to not just also share my favorite quotes from Peace Like a River.  I read it this summer in Texas, when I was visiting my friends Bryana and Shannon and their family.  It's probably odd to go across the country to visit friends and read their books, but I loved it.  I don't know if I would have read this book otherwise and I am so grateful that I did.

So, without further ado...

Once traveling, it's remarkable how quickly faith erodes.

It starts to look like something else -- ignorance, for example.

Same thing happened to the Israelites.

Sure it's weak, but sometimes you'd rather just have a map.

"You can say yes if it's true."

But I couldn't answer. 

I feared the outcome of honest speech -- 

that it might reach forward in time and arrange events to come.

The good thing about complete darkness 

is that you can lie there quietly 

and let the other person rethink the smart-alecky thing they have just said.

Real miracles bother people, 

like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. 

It's true: 

They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in... 

a miracle contradicts the will of the earth... 

People fear miracles because they fear being changed -- 

though ignoring them will change you also... 

No miracle happens without a witness.  

Someone to declare, 

Here's what I saw.  Here's how it went.  Make of it what you will.  

Davy wanted life to be something you did on your own;

the whole idea of a protective, fatherly God annoyed him.

I would understand this better in years to come but never subscribe to it...

The weak must bank on mercy --

without which, after all, I wouldn't have lasted fifteen minutes.

"Just because I write it doesn't mean it really happened."

"...who's running this story?"

She didn't answer.  She was right not to.  It was a dumb old question.

Wars escalate in mysterious ways, unforeseen by good men and prophets...

Swede's absence seemed, actually, pretty convenient.

So thoughtlessly we swing on our destinies.

It seemed, honestly, like a mistake.

I couldn't remember ever being so easily liked.

In retrospect it's hard to believe I didn't see instantly what to do with that money.

But when it's the first you've earned by sweat you see it as special 

and by golly not to be spent on less than the desire of your grasping heart.

How could we not believe the Lord would guide us?

How could we not have faith?

For the foundation had been laid in prayer and sorrow.

Since that fearful night, Dad had responded with the almost impossible work of belief. 

He had burned with repentance as though his own hand had fired the gun.

He had laid up prayer as with a trowel.