Adversity Begets Strength

Adversity begets strength (if we allow it) as darkness eventually yields to light.   These dark, short December days are a trial.  Who likes driving to and from work in the dark?  Who would like being imprisoned in a small dark cell for nine months?  St. John of the Cross, Carmelite priest co-Reformer of the Carmelites along with St. Teresa of Avila, and Doctor of the Church, suffered just such a period as his own friars rebelled against his efforts of reform, cast him into a small prison cell and beat him three times a week  How dark does it get?  He escaped by unscrewing the lock on his door, and descending from a window on pieces of blanket tied together in classic prison escape fashion, carrying with him his poetry and now famous Dark Night of the Soul.  His dark period helped him to see the Light that really matters, the LOVE of our all-loving God.  His writings continue to illumine the way for those seeking a deeper, contemplative relationship with God; without his own sufferings, poverty in his youth and this period of rejection and imprisonment, he would not have been able to help others see clearly how adversity leads to strength, darkness to light   St. John of the Cross, let me use the darkness of December and the trials of daily life as the means to encountering the Light of Christ
Bro. Rene