Patience brings about happiness.
The Learner:
Lord god, I can see that patience is something vitally necessary to me, because this life abounds in circumstances that thwart our happiness. No matter how carefully I endeavour to live in peace, my days must have their share of conflict and sorrow.The Beloved:
That is so, my son; but the kind of peace I want you to aim at is not one in which temptations are not present, or difficulties not felt. The time when you may reckon you have found peace is when you have been harassed by various temptations and put to the proof by much adversity. If you say you cannot stand much suffering, how are you going to stand the fire of purgatory? You should always choose the lesser of two evils. To escape eternal punishment in the world to come, you should strive to bear patiently for God's sake the evils of this present life. Do you suppose worldly men have next to nothing in the way of suffering? Put the question to those whose lives are a round of pleasures; you will find you are wrong. . . . >p>
~Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, p. 128
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