[The following is an account from the book, "The Meaning of Suffering / Strife and Reconciliation," by Archimandrite Seraphim Aleksiev, 15-St. John the Merciful and the Woman, Pg 49. May you find it edifying.]
The greatest mystics of the Faith have valued suffering as a sign of the great love of God, of God's thoughtful Fatherly care which we cannot fully understand while we are in this world, . but which will be seen as a blessing when viewed from the future life.
Church tradition relates that St. John the Merciful, after completing a Divine Service, once noticed that a woman was crying bitterly in a corner of the church. He told his deacon, "Go and bring that woman, so that we can find out why she is so grieved - whether her husband has died, or her children are sick, or God has sent some other misfortune."
The deacon brought the woman to the Saint. When St. John asked her why she was crying so inconsolably, she said, "How can I not cry, holy Father? Three years have passed, and no sorrow has come to us. It seems that God has forgotten us completely. There is no sickness in the home, no ox has been lost, nor has a sheep died, and my family has begun to live carelessly. I am afraid that we will perish because of our easy life, and that is why I am crying." The Bishop-Saint marvelled at the answer and praised God.
In such a way the Christians of the past have considered sufferings to be sent from God and have grieved when they did not have sorrows. If they needed trials in life so that they would not forget God and become estranged from Him, how much more necessary and saving are sufferings for us, contemporary Christians, who have sunk deeply in sins! God would not send sorrows in this life if they did not have the power to save us from eternal sorrows in hell.
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