I do not pray to God to relieve you of your suffering. I pray fervently and humbly that He gives you the strength and patience to endure suffering for as long as it pleases Him. Seek comfort only in Him. He has bound you to the cross and only He will free you from it when He deems it good. Blessed is he who suffers with Him. Try to bear your suffering in this spirit. Seek from Him the strength to endure everything, no matter what suffering He has ordained for you, no matter how long. Those who love this fleeting world do not understand this truth. I am not surprised; for they suffer as children of this world, not as friends of Christ. They see in sickness only natural distress, not a task from God. Because they look only with natural eyes, they perceive in every illness only an unwelcome and undesirable thing. However, those who believe that sickness can come from God as a sign of His grace and as a means for the salvation of man find in it encouraging light and great, tangible comfort. I wish you could deeply experience that God is closer to us and that He does more for us when we are sick than when we are healthy…
(St. Lawrence of the Resurrection, letter 12)
