Theodore Cuyler, God’s Light on Dark Clouds:
Never has [God] promised us an easy road or a smooth road, or such a road as our selfishness may select. He never consents that the flock shall decide as to the lot in which they shall be pastured, or over what deep hills he shall conduct them, or through what valleys of the death-shade they shall walk, listening to his voice through the dark.…Whom he loves he chastens, and in proportion to the love is the discipline. The trial that tests graces and purifies character must be something more than a pin-scratch. It must cut deep, it must try us; and sharply too, or it does not deserve the name.
Words of Grace 