“Where there is love, there is pain. But whatever our walk in life, this kind of pain is God’s way of teaching us how to pray. Everything that happens to us spiritually, everything that causes us to grow, will bring us closer to God if we say yes. This is what spiritual growth means. It doesn’t come from what we do, necessarily, from all our actions and good works. Sometimes it comes from simply sitting and seeing the shambles of what we tried to accomplish, from watching what was seemingly God’s work go to pot. You can’t do anything about it, but watch. This happened to me. I knew dimly then what I see more clearly today, that this was the moment when God really picked me up and said, ‘Now I am offering you the union you seek. the other side of my cross is empty. Come, be nailed upon it. This is our marriage bed.’

“All we can answer in response to that invitation is, ‘Help me, God! I don’t have the courage to climb on this cross.'” ~Catherine Doherty, Soul of My Soul