s and
blessings God has showered upon me I do not trust myself. I still
remain the sinner, fundamentally and potentially at every step the
sinner. But Love and Grace surround the sinner. Love and Grace
save the sinner from himself: Love and Grace can beautify and make
the sinner shine.

My physical sufferings are not to be compared with the sufferings I
see others endure, and endure cheerfully: this is a great shame and
humiliation to me, because I have not learnt to suffer cheerfully: I
am too easily undone by suffering and by the sight of suffering in
any living thing; but although one may be a coward--that is to say,
one may inwardly shrink from every kind of suffering,--one can be,
and it is necessary to be, quite submissive; and to refrain from the
slightest rebellion or selfishness--this is what God takes note of.
What a difference there is between the selfish and the unselfish
sufferer: how the one makes everyone around him miserable, wears
them out body and soul; and how the other calls out all that is best in
others and strengthens all that is best in himself! It is not so
important whether we are secretly cowards or heroes; what matters
is how we deal with sufferings when they come, what reaction we
permit or encourage on their account in heart and mind and soul.
There is nothing but suffering that can cleanse us, nothing but pain
and misfortune which can so thoroughly convince us of our own
nothingness, and break self-pride: joy will not do it; joy can do
nothing more than refresh us after our sufferings, and in almost all
lives we see how joy is made to alternate with sorrow: it encourages,
it stimulates to further endeavours (this is the reason that God, at a
certain stage of progress, gives extraordinary blisses, ecstasies, and
so on), but it does not disperse our blemishes: the dispersal of
spiritual blemishes is, as we know, the main reason of life in the
flesh; it must be done, and the sooner the better: then we can finish,
once and for all, with flesh existence. Righteous and very virtuous
people may be able to dispense with Divine joys and consolations: it
is doubtful if many sinners can--they require the confidence, the
certainty, the enthusiasm which is naturally kindled by such
experiences. So then we find that the vicissitudes of life, the endless
daily trials, do not go because we find God. But His Grace comes,
and when His Grace is with us wet or shine is all one, love and
beauty gently sparkl