God is teaching you by His great picture book of nature to wait, to sow your seed, and wait for the slow ripening of the harvest under the patient heavens. He does not give you perfect and full-formed things at once. He sows the seeds of things that will gradually grow and ripen and bear fruit. He gives buds first, and then full unfolded blossoms, and then perfect fruit. —Hugh Macmillan (c.1850), adapted
Treasures of Darkness
There is a power to lift you up, to encourage you, to give you a brighter outlook on life that is stronger than all of the powers that try to pull you down.