ON “JOY IN GOD”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “The poet Stifter once said, “Pain is a holy angel, who shows treasures to people which would otherwise remain forever hidden; through him, people have become greater than through all the joys of the world.” It must be so, and I tell myself this in my present situation over and over again. The pain of suffering and of longing, which can often be felt even physically, must be there, and we cannot and need not talk it away. But it needs to be overcome every time, and thus there is an even holier angel than the one of pain; that is, the one of joy in God.”