August 13

In your patience possess ye your souls. — Luke 21:19

What though thy way be dark, and earth
With ceaseless care do cark, till mirth
To thee no sweet strain singeth;
Still hide thy life above, and still
Believe that God is love; fulfil
Whatever lot He bringeth.
—ALBERT E. EVANS.

The soul loses command of itself when it is impatient. Whereas, when it submits without a murmur it possesses itself in peace, and possesses God. To be impatient, is to desire what we have not, or not to desire what we have. When we acquiesce in an evil, it is no longer such. Why make a real calamity of it by resistance? Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul. We may preserve it in the midst of the bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence even in disagreeable things, not in an exemption from bearing them.
—FRANÇOIS DE LA MOTHE FÉNELON.

The chief pang of most trials is not so much the actual suffering itself, as our own spirit of resistance to it.
—JEAN NICOLAS GROU.