sufferings and difficulties for them, whether they be small or
great. This is real strength, to trust in God when to all our
senses and reason He appears to be angry; and to have greater
confidence in Him than we feel. Here He is hidden, as the bride
says in the Song of Songs: "Behold he standeth behind our wall,
he looketh forth at the windows"; that is, He stands hidden among
the sufferings, which would separate us from Him like a wall,
yea, like a wall of stone, and yet He looks upon me and does not
leave me, for He is standing and is ready graciously to help, and
through the window of dim faith He permits Himself to be seen.
And Jeremiah says in Lamentations, "He casts off men, but He does
it not willingly."

This faith they do not know at all, and give up, thinking that
God has forsaken them and is become their enemy; they even lay
the blame of their ills on men and devils, and have no confidence
at all in God. For this reason, too, their suffering is always
an offence and harmful to them, and yet they go and do some good
works, as they think, and are not aware of their unbelief. But
they who in such suffering trust God and retain a good, firm
confidence in Him, and believe that He is pleased with them,
these see in their sufferings and afflictions nothing but
precious merits and the rarest possessions, the value of which
no one can estimate. For faith and confidence make precious
before God all that which others think most shameful, so that it
is written even of death in Psalm cxvi, "Precious in the sight
of the Lord is the death of His saints." And just as the
confidence and faith are better, higher and stronger at this
stage than in the first stage, so and to the same degree do the
sufferings which are borne in this faith excel all works of