Moreover, it is common for believers, when they are faced with trials and hardships, to feel as though they are undeserving of such misfortunes. In his Letters to Olympias, St. John Chrysostom offers a new outlook: “Nothing, Olympias, redounds so much to the credit of any one as patient endurance in suffering. For this is indeed the queen of virtues, and the perfection of crowns; and as it excels all other forms of righteousness, so this particular species of it is more glorious than the rest.”[28] Through suffering, we have the opportunity to cultivate many virtues, and the despair that may be engendered in us through hardship can rather become a means for glorification. This paradoxical perspective — of the opportunities and growth which suffering may occasion — may seem, at first glance, to be illogical. Rather, we are assured by the Apostle Paul that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men,”[29] and that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

To Be Blessed Is To Suffer?
Hilana Said