If, therefore, sufferings have great rewards, and despair is the most grievous and most painful of all sufferings, imagine what will be the recompense for it! I will not cease chanting this refrain to you, in order to fulfill now what I promised in the beginning: to draw out from despondency itself the considerations that will give birth to consolation from despondency in you.
—Saint John Chrysostom, Letters to Saint Olympia