From My Commonplace...

"...and looking back upon the year's accumulated heap of troubles, Margaret wondered how they had been borne. If she could have anticipated them, how she would have shrunk away and hid herself from the coming time! And yet day by day had, of itself, and by itself, been very endurable - small, keen, bright little spots of positive enjoyment having come sparkling into the very middle of sorrows."    

 North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

Ch. XIII pg 104

          I love this book and this quote in particular. Sometimes, looking back as Margaret did, life looks overwhelming. Yet God sustains each moment of each day. And He can bring joy and beauty and goodness in the midst of pain and loss and grief. I hope this quote from my commonplace book might encourage someone else as it has me.