nothing is wasted

 "Our difficulties, whatever they may be, can all be used. They are redemptive. Many, many saints experienced various degrees of mental and emotional suffering and anxiety, and their experience, painful as it was, had profoundly spiritual effects on themselves and others. The anxiety is true at the level of felt experience, but at a deeper level, at the level of spirit and faith, something quite different may be happening. Even in anxiety one can have a real sense of God's love and possess faith.

And it's important to recognize that feeling low, depressed, is an emotional state, not an action. This does not cut you off from God in any way. Those who suffer this affliction have not yielded to it, any more than one yields to a broken arm or leg. So it is never a question of yielding to a sinful action - that would be a far deeper wound - but rather a condition.

But this condition is not meaningless. Prayers to God for help and relief are real prayers and signs of an active faith, hope, and love. This recognition of our need of God, and learning to trust him, are very precious. In all these ways there can be real growth in the midst of, and in spite of, anxieties. Also, these experiences, painful as they are, often bring a deepening compassion for others. All of us have something to carry - whether physical or moral or spiritual - and, united to Christ, these become fruitful for ourselves and others."

                                                    -  Sister Mary David Totah, O.S.B. from Magnificat, February 2025

All emphases are mine. Sister Mary David Totah was an American who later became a Benedictine nun at Saint Cecilia's Abbey on the Isle of Wight. She died in 2017.