• Still, when we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not-curing, not-healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

    —Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

  • “The more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt. The one who does most to avoid suffering is, in the end, the one who suffers most.”

    —Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

  • A continuously happy life produces extremely unhappy consequences. In nature we see that there are not always pleasant springs and fruitful summers, and sometimes autumn is rainy and winter cold and snowy, and there is flooding and wind and storms, and moreover the crops fail and there are famine, troubles, sicknesses and many other misfortunes. All of this is beneficial so that man might learn through prudence, patience and humility. For the most part, in times of plenty he forgets himself, but in times of various sorrows he becomes more attentive to his salvation.

    —St. Ambrose of Optina

  • “Without pain, we wouldn’t have some of the greatest works of art known to mankind.”

    —Lauren Martin, It’s Proven: Why The Greatest People Are Many Times The Loneliest

  • God always helps. He always comes in time, but patience is necessary. He hears us immediately when we cry out to Him, but not in accordance with our own way of thinking. You think that your voice did not immediately reach the saints, our Panagia, and Christ. On the contrary, even before you cried out, the saints rushed to your aid, knowing that you would call upon them and seek their God-given protection. However, since you do not see beyond what is apparent and do not know how God governs the world, you want your request to be fulfilled like lightning. But this is not how things are. The Lord wants patience. He wants you to show your faith. You cannot just pray like a parrot. It is necessary also to work towards whatever one prays for, and then to learn to wait. You see that what you longed for in the past has finally happened. However, you were harmed because you didn’t have the patience to wait, in which case you would have gained both the one and the other: both the temporal and the eternal.

    —Elder Joseph the Hesychast

  • If you suffer some misfortune, then think: “The Lord sees my heart, and if it pleases Him, it will be well both for me and others.” And thus your soul will always be at peace. But is someone murmurs, “This is bad, and that is bad,” then he will never have peace in his soul, even though he fasts and prays a lot.

    —St. Silouan the Athonite, Writings

  • “If you examine your life well, you will find many instances when God showed His unmistakable mercy to you. Trouble was brewing, but it passed you by for some reason. God delivered you. Acknowledge these and thank God, Who loves you.”

    —St. Theophan the Recluse

  • There is no aspect of any suffering whatever that is foreign to Me, that is outside Me. I am afflicted in all the afflictions of men, espousing them to the maximum, without their being able to erode My nature either by corrupting it or by diminishing it. Each human affliction releases in Me a new impulse of Love which wants to sweep into its vortex everything negative. Thou, mother who hast lost thy child,
    woman who hast lost thy husband, young girl who hast lost thy sweetheart, thou who art tortured by cancer, thou who art prisoner in a concentration camp, another the prisoner of alcohol, or of drugs, or of an egoistic sexuality, I am bowed over your misery, ah! If you but knew that I did not will such things, that they result from the work of the enemy, and that, invisibly, I am fighting for you! The outcome I prepare for you is one of light. Now is the hour and the power of darkness; and the time of their undoing must still remain hidden. But My Love will overcome their resistance and will wipe away all the tears. The veil will be lifted. Then you will see, you will understand. You will make your choice.

    —Lev Gillet, In Thy Presence

  • The one who has undergone gymnastic training will not be disheartened in the arena when he gets hit, but will immediately attack the opponent, despising momentary affliction in order to be named the champion. So also, when those who love virtue encounter something unpleasant, it will not hinder their joy. For suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us. [Rom 5.3—5] Therefore the Apostle exhorts us, in another place, to rejoice in hope and hope in distress. [Rom 12.12]

    —St. Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts, Homily Against Drunkards

  • Just as one with weak eyes turns them away from anything that is very bright, refreshing the vision with flowers and herbs, so also must your soul not stare at sorrow, fixating on present afflictions, but rather focus your eye on the true Good.

    —St. Basil the Great, On Fasting and Feasts, Homily Against Drunkards