One more thing before bed...

OK. The earlier rant is over and I now remember what I was originally going to post.

I got turned on to a great book a few months back. It is called The Seeking Heart, by Fenelon. Francois de Salignac de La Mothe-Fenelon was a Catholic Archbishop in France in the late 1600's/early 1700's. There are a couple of books, of which The Seeking Heart is one, that are a collection of Fenelon's letters to friends in the French court.

Normally, this is not the type of book I would just go out and read. But it was recommended by a trusted source and so I got it. Ken told me to read one letter a day until one grabbed me and then to not stop reading that letter until it let me go.

The book is a winner. Here's an excerpt from a letter called "The Benefit of Trials":

You have some difficult trials to bear but you need them since God has allowed these events to happen. He knows how to select them. You could not have picked for yourself what God brings into your life through the cross. The cross that you would pick would build your self-will instead of breaking it down.

There are times in life when everything in life seems like a trial. Sometimes there is only suffering. Still, the heaviest cross must be carried in peace. Sometimes the cross can be neither carried or dragged. Then you can only fall down beneath it, overwhelmed and exhausted. I pray that God may spare you from as much suffering as possible.

Remember that God is not unaware of your suffering. He allows your suffering. See that He alone knows what is best for you. Live by faith as you embrace your trials. Confidently trust in God, even when you do not see what He is doing. Trust that God, with great compassion, gives you trials in proportion to the help that He wants to bring to you. There is no doubt that the life of faith is the most penetrating of all deaths...

Remain simple and low before God and He will bring you peace, gentleness, longsuffering, and contentment even in your trouble.