How terribly the rice suffers under the pestle!

Lady Borton

How terribly the rice suffers under the pestle!
But it emerges polished, as white as cotton.
The same process tempers the human spirit:
Hard trials shape us into polished diamonds.

~ from A PRISON DIARY by Ho Chi Minh in AFTER SORROW by Lady Borton

After Sorrow

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You know, O my God, I have never desired anything but to love You, I am ambitious for no other glory. Your love has gone before me, and it has grown with me, and now it is an abyss whose depths I cannot fathom. Love attracts love and my love leaps toward yours; it would like to fill the abyss which attracts it, but alas; it is not even a drop of dew lost in the ocean! For me to love You as You love me, I would have to borrow your own Love.

~ Therese of Lisieux