Kimberly Merida

“The word suffering is much too grand to apply to most of our troubles, but if we don’t learn to refer the little things to God how shall we learn to refer the big ones? A definition which covers all sorts of trouble, great or small, is this: having what you don’t want, or wanting what you don’t have. The vicissitudes of travel furnish plenty of what Janet Erskine Stuart calls “blessed inconveniences,” occasions which fit both categories in our definition.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, A Path Through Suffering

“Faith need never ask, “But what good did this do me?” Faith already knows that everything that happens fits into a pattern for good to those who love God. An inconvenience is always, whether we see it or not, a blessed inconvenience. We may rest in the promise that God is fitting together a good many more things than are any of our business. We need never see “what good it did,” or how a given trouble accomplishes anything. It is peace to leave it all with Him, asking only that He do with me anything He wants, anywhere, anytime, that God may be glorified.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, A Path Through Suffering

“Each time God gives us a hard lesson He desires also to give us Himself. If we open our hands to receive the lesson we open our hearts to receive Him, and with Himself His vision to see the glory in the surrender, whether of small things like self-esteem and reputation, or bigger things like a career and a home.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, A Path Through Suffering

“It is a merciful Father who strips us when we need to be stripped, as the tree needs to be stripped of its blossoms. He is not finished with us yet, whatever the loss we suffer, for as we loose our hold on visible things, the invisible become more precious—where our treasure is, there will our hearts be.”
― Elisabeth Elliot, A Path Through Suffering