Just a few sentences

At the beginning of the year I had a notebook I was going to record sentences in that stood out to me from my reading, but I am succumbing to this electronic age and recording such sentences here instead.   

I was reading the Silmarillion last night, and Tolkien has a way of writing things so perfectly.

"The lies of Melkor thou shalt unlearn in bitterness."

As I thought about that sentence, I thought about how our true Enemy is a liar, and it is comforting that all of his lies will be shown for what they are in the end, and that even before the end God graciously takes away the blindness of men's hearts to see the lies they have believed.  

But I also thought it was a poignant truth Tolkien captured, that the "unlearning" of lies can also come with great bitterness. 

...I would stop writing here, but that seems like a sad note to leave off on a Sunday morning.  So I'll leave you with the words of another Englishman.  (Englishman are on my brain lately... Only 36 days until my feet touch that shore!)

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.