The Screwtape Letters

What a phenomenal and heartening quote from CS Lewis:
"Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own two legs-to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot 'tempt' to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

Frankly, my trials in life are nothing to boast about, truly, I am more blessed than I could ever say, but I was so affected by reading it, that I am truly grateful to know that I should be encouraged by more difficult times, and that it means greater things than easy times I've enjoyed before in my life.