Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.

I am not a theologian or a scholar, but I am very aware of the fact that pain is necessary to all of us. In my own life, I think I can honestly say that out of the deepest pain has come the strongest conviction of the presence of God and the love of God.

There is, in fact, no redemptive work done anywhere without suffering.

St. Augustine said, The very pleasures of human life men acquire by difficulties. There are times when the entire arrangement of our existence is disrupted and we long then for just one ordinary day - seeing our ordinary life as greatly desirable, even wonderful, in the light of the terrible disruption that has taken place. Difficulty opens our eyes to pleasures we had taken for granted.

It's He who was the Word before the foundation of the world, suffering as a lamb slain. And He has a lot up His sleeve that you and I haven't the slightest idea about now. He's told us enough so that we know suffering is never for nothing.

Suffering creates the possibility of growth in, holiness, but only to those who, by letting all else go, are open to the training—not by arguing with the Lord about what they did or did not do to deserve punishment, but by praying, "Lord, show me what You have for me in this.

isn't the problems that determine our destiny. It's how we respond.

Teach me to treat all that comes to me with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all. In unforeseen events let me not forget that all are sent by You.

The word suffering is much too grand to apply to most of our troubles, but if we don't learn to refer the little things to God how shall we learn to refer the big ones? A definition which covers all sorts of trouble, great or small, is this: having what you don't want, or wanting what you don't have. The vicissitudes of travel furnish plenty of what Janet Erskine Stuart calls "blessed inconveniences," occasions which fit both categories in our definition.

In times of deepest suffering it is the faithful carrying out of ordinary duties that brings the greatest consolation.

Some day, even you will see that there's sense in this. Your suffering is never for nothing.

I say that I found peace. I do not say that I was not lonely. I was--terribly. I do not say that I did not grieve. I did--most sorely. But peace of that sort the world cannot give comes, not by the removal of suffering, but in another way--through acceptance.