Unseen by either of us, Father had appeared in the doorway. "Give the child to me, Corrie," he said. Father held the baby close, his white beard brushed its cheek, looking into the little face with eyes as blue and innocent as the baby's own. At last he looked up at the pastor. "You say we could lose our lives for this child. I would consider that the greatest honor that could come to my family." The pastor turned sharply on his heels and walked out of the room.

Love. How did one show it? How could God Himself show truth and love at the same time in a world like this? By dying. The answer stood out for me sharper and chillier than it ever had before that night: the shape of a Cross etched on the history of the world.

Somehow, out of his watch shop that never made money, he fed and dressed and cared for eleven more children after his own four were grown.

Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.

Pray to Christ for me that the animals will be the means of making me a sacrificial victim for God.

I realize that those who have loved us are never really gone. They live on in all the ones we love and all the ways we love. They are the reason we know how to love at all.

I will not live without love.

What is done in love is done well.

Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.

[The witch] would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.

Christian faith, which is at its heart about self-giving—God's self-giving and human self-giving—and not about self-imposing.

At the end of her story she said simply, "As I look back, this is what matters. I have loved and been loved, and all the rest is just background music.