Favorite Quotes from "Stepping Heavenward"

I suppose to those who look on from outisde we must appear like a most unhappy family, since we hardly get free from one trouble before another steps in.  But I see more and more that happiness is not dependent on health or any other outside prosperity.  We are at peace with each other and at peace with God; His dealings with us do not perplex or puzzle us, though we do not pretend to understand them.
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Katherine, speaking about her younger brother and his new love:
I have a strange and most absurd envy when I think what a good time they are having at this moment downstairs while I sit here alone, vainly wishing I could see more of Earnest (her husband).  Just as if my happiness were not a deeper, more blessed one than theirs, which must be purged of much dross before it will prove itself to be like gold.  Yes, I suppose I am as happy in my dear precious husband and children as a wife and mother can be in a fallen world, which must not be a real heaven lest we should love the land we journey through so well as to want to pitch our tents in it forever and cease to look and long for the home whither we are bound.
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Mrs. Campbell, on her deathbed, to Katherine:
But before I go, I want once more to tell you how good He is, how blessed it is to suffer with Him, how infinitely happy He has made me in the very hottest heat of the furnace.  It will strengthen you in your trails to recall this my dying testimony.  There is no wilderness so dreary but that His love can illuminate it, no desolation so desolate but that He can sweeten it.  I know what I am saying.  It is no delusion.  I believe that the highest, purest happiness is known only to those who have learned Christ in sickrooms, in poverty, in racking suspense and anxiety, amid hardships, and at the open grave...To learn Christ, this is life!"
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May this prayer, which, under the inspiration of the moment, I can offer without a misgiving, become the habitual, deep-seated desire of my soul:
"Bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.  Take what I cannot give - my heart, body, thoughts, time, abilities, money, health, strength, nights, days, youth, age - and spend them in Thy service, O my crucified Master, Redeemer, God.  Oh, let not these be mere words!  Whom have I in heaven but Thee?  And there is no one upon earth that I desire in comparison to Thee.  My heart is athirst for God, for the living God."