Encouragement in Suffering from our Sister Therese

This really touched me the day I read it. I had been sick, the kids had been sick, Paul and I had been having a difficult time...it was just the thing, a gift from heaven, Little Therese showering her roses on me. It gave me hope and purpose. I hope it speaks to you as well.

I assure you...I am doing all that is within my power to obtain the graces necessary for you; these graces certainly will be granted to you since Our Lord never asks sacrifices from us above our strength. At times, it is true, this divine Savior makes us feel all the bitterness of the chalice that he is offering our soul. When he asks the sacrifice of all that is dearest in this world, it is impossible, without a very special grace, not to cry out like him in the garden of agony: "Father, let this chalice pass from me...however, may your will be done and not mine."

It is very consoling to think that Jesus, the Strong God, knew our weaknesses, that he trembled at the sight of the bitter chalice, this chalice that he had in the past so ardently desired to drink...

Your lot is very beautiful since Our Lord chose it for himself and since he first wet his lips with the cup he is offering you.

A saint has said: "The greatest honor God can give a soul is not to give it much but to ask much from it!" Jesus is treating you then as a privileged one. He wills that you already begin your mission and that through suffering you may save souls. Is it not in suffering, in dying that he himself redeemed the world?...I know you aspire to the joy of sacrificing your life for the divine Master, but martyrdom of the heart is not less fruitful than the pouring out of one's blood, and now this martyrdom is yours. I am right, then, in saying that your lot is beautiful, that it is worthy of an apostle of Christ...

Let us work together for the salvation of souls; we have only the one day of this life to save them and thus to give the Lord proofs of our love. The tomorrow of this day will be eternity, and then Jesus will restore to you a hundredfold the very sweet and very legitimate joys that you sacrificed for him.

From a letter by St. Therese of Lisieux