“Good works are the seals and proofs of faith; for even as a letter must have a seal to strengthen the same, even so faith must have good works.”

“When some people say, as they do, that when we preach faith alone good works are forbidden, it is as if I were to say to a sick man, “If you had health you would have the full use of all your limbs, but without health the works of all your limbs are nothing,” and from this he wanted to infer that I had forbidden the works of his limbs. Whereas on the contrary I meant that the health must first be there to work all the works of all his limbs. In the same way faith must be the master-workman and captain in all the works, or they are nothing at all.”

“He must trust, and he must have faith. And so he builds, because what is building, and rebuilding and rebuilding again, but an act of faith?”

“Even good girls have secrets, ones even their best friends must guess.”

“I'm afraid that in the United States of America today the prevailing doctrine of justification is not justification by faith alone. It is not even justification by good works or by a combination of faith and works. The prevailing notion of justification in our culture today is justification by death. All one has to do to be received into the everlasting arms of God is to die.”

“I have to learn to love from this spot, today. I have to learn to trust, even when His will seems frightening or untrustworthy. I have to follow Him, even when it feels like I am walking into emptiness. It is right here, right today, that I must decide where my faith is. If serving God does not work from right here, in the middle of my pain and mourning, it won't work from anywhere.”