orthodoxgladness:

Rejoice, if the Almighty chose you for testing.
After all, you do not know what is really better for you – hardship or well-being.

Photo: Savior-Prilutskiy Dimitriev male Monastery, Vologda.

And who can grasp this? Yet it is true! We think in suffering: “If only I was in the place of peace and joy!” Yet who am I to know that the place of peace and joy is not just a mask on a road to destruction? I am given the here and now. There is no other path. Thus, if the path given to me is to suffer, then this would be what is safest for me.

God, let me follow where you lead.