“The best thing is neither to seek nor avoid troubles but to follow Christ and take the bitter with the sweet as it may come. Whether we are happy or unhappy at any given time is not important. That we be in the will of God is all that matters. We may safely leave with him the incident of heartache or happiness. He will know how much we need of either or both.”
A.W. Tozer (as read in a blog post by Joni Erickson Tada)
The last line is the one on which I reflect quite a bit, particularly as regards what I think of as "extreme" suffering. I have also been reading Joni's book When God Weeps: Why Our Sufferings Matter to the Almighty, co-authored with Steve Estes. I need these more balanced perspectives as I read stories of heartache -- and healing -- in the Congo, India, the USA, etc. I used to have a quote from Dante on my fridge: "And in His will is our peace."
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