The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit, hour by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present, the exact present, that is unbearable.
Remember one is given strength to bear what happens to one, but not the 100 and 1 different things that might happen.
C.S. Lewis, Letter to An American Lady
If our Lord pluck up one of His roses, and pull down sour and green fruit before harvest, who can challenge Him? For he sendeth us to His world, as men to a market, wherein some stay many hours, and eat and drink, and buy and sell, and pass through the fair, till they be weary; and such are those who live long, and get a heavy fill of this life. And others again come slipping in to the morning market, and do neither sit nor stand, nor buy nor sell, but look about them a little, and pass presently home again....they end their short market in the morning, and get but a short view of the Fair. Our Lord, who hath numbered man's months, and set him bounds that he cannot pass (Job 14v5), hath written the length of our market, and it is easier to complain of the decree than to change it. (Letter XXXV, p98)
