To Enter Into a New World

"Remember, I said it was God who was prying the little girl's hands off her eyes. As if He were saying, 'I can't use ivory-tower followers. They're plaster of paris. They crumble and fall apart in life's press. So you've got to see life the way it really is before you can do anything about evil. You cannot vanquish it. I can. But in My world the battle against evil has to be a joint endeavor. You and Me. I, God, in you, can have the victory every time.' After that, He was always right there beside me, looking at the dreadful sights with compassion and love and heartbreak. His caring and His love were too real for bitterness to grow in me."

"Christy . . . [p]erceptive people . . . wound more easily than others. But if we're going to work on God's side, we have to decide to open our hearts to the griefs and pains all around us. It's not an easy decision. A dangerous one too. And a tiny narrow door to enter into a whole new world.
"But in that world a great experience waits for us: meeting the One who's entered there before us. He suffers more than any of us could because His is the deepest emotion and the highest perception.
"Not, mind you, that He approves of suffering or wills it. Quite the opposite. and He doesn't just leave us and Himself in anguish. At the point where His ultimate in love meets the total capacity to absorb and feel all our agony, there the miracle happens, and the exterior situation changes. I've seen the miracle."

-From Catherine Marshall's classic novel, Christy