the valley of suffering is the vale of soul-making

In May, my good friend's dad passed away suddenly and unexpectedly. I did not know Gerald, but through his loss and funeral, I learned some beautiful things about him.  I learned that Gerald stopped in daily at his Catholic parish to light a candle and to pray.  My friend shared this practice of her dad's in a text to me, and it attached itself to me and would not let go.  I went home and took the unity candle from Mike's and my wedding day out of my cedar chest.  I placed it on the table next to my bed, and I've been lighting it each morning when I make the bed....praying daily to Jesus, Light of the World, to illuminate, reveal, heal in the midst of so much difficulty and darkness found in the lives of family, friends, our community, our world.  Perhaps, these words below might be the greatest prayer for us all...

"And sometimes, when the cry is intense, there emerges a radiance which elsewhere seldom appears: a glow of courage, of love, of insight, of selflessness, of faith.  In that radiance, we see best what humanity was meant to be...In the valley of suffering, despair and bitterness are brewed.  But there also character is made.  The valley of suffering is the vale of soul-making." -Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son.

"It is therefore not true that we become less through loss- unless we allow the loss to make us less, grinding our soul down until there is nothing left but an external self entirely under the control of circumstances.  Loss can also make us more.  In the darkness, we can still find the light. In death, we can also find life.  It depends on the choices we make.  Though these choices are difficult and rarely made in haste or with ease, we can nevertheless make them.  Only when we choose to pay attention to our souls will we learn how much more there is to life than the external world around us, however wonderful or horrible that world is.  We will discover the world within.  Yet such attention to the soul does not have to engender self-absorption.  If anything, it eventually turns us toward the world again and makes us more compassionate and just than we might otherwise have been." -Jerry Sittser, p.49 A Grace Disguised