Nothing can withstand the power of the human will if it is willing to stake its very existence to the extent of its purpose.

Maybe the only enemy is that we don't like the way reality is *now* and therefore wish it would go away fast. but what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.

The only way God can strengthen his presence in our will is to weaken his presence in our feelings. Otherwise we would become spiritual cripples, unable to walk without emotional crutches. This is why he gives us dryness, sufferings, and failures.

Love is strengthened and perfected by suffering. Couples who have had only ease lack depth. True love needs to suffer. "The course of true love never did run smooth." Kindness—mere kindness—cannot tolerate suffering. Love can.

Even saints do not smile sweetly when God throws them into mud puddles. Only pigs do that.

No happiness on earth can be deeper than the happiness that comes from our willing and active submission to God's will even when he wills suffering.

bad fortune is really just as good for you as good fortune is, in fact, it is better, because, he says, bad fortune teaches, while good fortune deceives. When

God's Spirit is most powerfully at work in us during emotional troughs, the "dry" times, not the "high" times. All the saints teach that. When the aid of feelings is removed, we can move forward only by heroic effort of our will. This

He is not the solution to our problems; He is the giver of our problems. Our problems are His tasks and our opportunities, His teaching and our education, His will and our sanctification.

There is a sermon in the fact that the gates are pearl. [Because] heaven is entered through suffering and travail, through redemption and blood, through the agony of the cross. A pearl is a jewel made by a little animal that is wounded. Without the wound, the pearl is never formed.

Should it be ours to drain the cup of grieving, even to the dregs of pain, at thy command, we will not falter, thankfully receiving all that is given by thy loving hand. While all the powers of Good aid and attend us, boldly we'll face the future, be what it may. At even, and at morn, God will befriend us, and oh, most surely on each new year's day!

James teaches us that we can be victors instead of victims, if we will mentally prepare ourselves by: 1. celebrating the reason behind our trials; 2. calculating the results of our trials; 3. calling on God's resources in our trials; 4. considering our reactions to our trials; 5. contemplating the reward of our trials.