We learn faith very slowly. At least I did. It took a whole series of changes before I got the message that God is in the next place as surely as God is in this one. However successful every transition in my life has ever been – and there have been lots of them – I have dug my heels to resist the very thought of another one. I put down roots into the earth of my comfort zone and refused to move into the light. …

The spiritual life does not come cheap. It is not a stroll down a Mary Poppins path with candy-store God who gives sweets and miracles. It is a walk into the dark with the God who is the light that leads us through darkness.

Darkness, I have discovered, is the way we come to see. It creates the depressions that, once faced, teach us to trust. It gives us the sensitivity it takes to understand the depth of the pain in others. It seeds in us the humility it takes to learn to live gently with the rest of the universe. It opens us to new possibilities in ourselves.

Joan Chittister

from Called to Question: a spiritual memoir. Sheed & Ward, 2004.