I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Here’s another light-filled ¤ Gem ¤

“My longing for truth was a single prayer.”

-Edith Stein (Saint Teresia Benedicta a Cruce)

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I hope we have a great week ahead.

* I wondered if you might be interested in how I select images for these quotes. Sometimes, I get an idea quickly, and I can finish a Gem in ten minutes. Sometimes, it takes a lot longer.

I didn’t know much about Edith Stein. Now I want to know everything about her. I discovered many books written about her life, so I put one on my Wishlist: Essays On Woman (The Collected Works of Edith Stein) (English and German Edition) Paperback – June 15, 1996.

I chose these photos for today’s Gem because of another quote from one of her essays:

“The woman’s soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls may unfold.”

-Edith Stein

A woman’s body often is too. I have always loved the idea of being a shelter for others. Our hearts are the fire in that shelter, where we gather comfortably to enjoy each other’s company. Thus, fire.

I chose the praying hands photo because I have been searching for truth, too, all my life. That’s why this Gem quote spoke to my heart so powerfully. My life began with absolute certainty in my faith, raised as a young Catholic girl by a Mom who taught Cathecism. I became a teen who went to Bible college as a born-again evangelical. I wanted to be a missionary and to live a life of service. By my 30s, I was a woman who had lost my faith utterly after people in power I trusted betrayed me many times over the years.

Now, I am an older woman. I sometimes miss the cushion of certainty. But I love the mystery of not knowing so much more.

I think we all long for the truth about something. Perhaps someday we’ll find it.

♥ n.f.