Goodness has never been a guarantee of safety.
Interpretation
Being good does not always protect one from harm or danger.
In this quote, Madeleine L'Engle highlights the idea that moral integrity and goodness do not exempt individuals from experiencing challenges or threats in life. It serves as a reminder that despite our good intentions and actions, we may still face adversity or danger, emphasizing the unpredictable nature of existence.
In practice
During a motivational speech about resilience in the face of difficulties.
Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.
Every death is like the burning of a library.
...I returned to walking up the mountain, and there, in the dim asexual beauty of reddening dawns and skies that firmed to blue, I discovered my real and appropriate strengths.
The choices you make today design your future
It isn't more light we need, it isn't more truth, and it isn't more scientific data. It is more Christ, more courage, more spiritual insight to act on the light we have.
All you have to do, I tell myself, is keep your mouth shut and look stupid. It shouldn't be that hard.
Growing up in the place I did I never was aware of any other option but to question everything.
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