The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see – and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.
Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty – beneath its covering – that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.
Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.
And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.
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This letter was written by Fra Giovanni Giocondo to his friend, Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513.
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Tis a Gift to Receive 
Amen.
I cried as I read what Ann wrote. Especially when I came to these words: “That our craving for Him is a way of experiencing Him. And in our hungering for God we are slowly healed by God.” Those were beautiful words to me. Through my hunger and restless ache I can somehow learn to know Him. He is with me in the middle the struggle, the seeming emptiness. I have so often pounded heaven asking Him to make everything okay, to make me feel good, but He keeps telling me (when I am quiet enough to hear) that He has bigger things in mind than that.