Friday, June 26, 2015

The Secret of Her Calm

"How unmistakably her cabin bore the flavor of Miss Alice's personality!  In both the woman and her home there was an effortless beauty, never a straining for effect, a harmony that seemed to come from having one's roots down in the place where the roots were meant to be.

"There was something else I had noticed too: an initial acceptance of herself as she was and so of other people with their foibles.  And so she did as little scolding or criticizing of others for their foolish behavior or their sins as anyone I had ever known.  It was not that she was willing to compromise with wrongdoing or poverty or ignorance, just that she was a long step ahead of wasting emotional energy on fretting.  And she never put pressure on the rest of us to accept her opinions.  The secret of her calm seemed to be that she was not trying to prove anything.  She was--that was all.  And her stance toward life seemed to say: God is--and that is enough."

          --Christy, by Catherine Marshall

No comments:

Post a Comment