MY CHILD, patience and humility in adversity are more pleasing to Me than much consolation and devotion when things are going well.
Why are you saddened by some little thing said againstyou? Even if it had been more you ought not to have been affected. But now let it pass. It is not the first, nor is it anything new, and if you live long it will not be the last.
You are manly enough so long as you meet no opposition. You give good advice to others, and you know how to strengthen them with words, but when unexpeted tribulation comes to your door, you fail both in counsel and in strength. Consider your great weakness, then, which you experience so often in small matters. Yet when these and like trials happen, they happen for your good.
The Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 57
