He that is not prepared to suffer all things, and to stand resigned to the will of his Beloved, is not worthy to be called a lover [of God]. A lover ought to embrace willingly all that is hard and distasteful for the sake of his Beloved, and not to turn away from Him on account of any contradictions.
Those words paralleled my reading in Sense and Sensibility this week. I was amazed at the differences between Elinor and Marianne´s responses to heartache. Marianne was blatantly heartbroken and didn´t care who knew it or who it affected. Elinor hid her hurts so as to not cause more suffering to those whom she loved. In our modern-day "let it all hang out" world we are all much more prone to be "Mariannes" than "Elinors". But Elinor gets my vote for best "lover".
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