It was I who chose you

I am convinced, my friend, that in some people God takes over completely...  We have depths reserved to God who alone fully knows our hidden weaknesses, our secret desires and needs...

It's only in the heart of Jesus that we will find the ultimate support, profound strength, and complete understanding of what we need in order to grow closer to him.  One thing is sure, namely, the divine will always wants what is good for us, whether in giving, refusing, or measuring out for us whatever we truly need...

You tell me you are becoming more and more aware of "your powerlessness, your poverty, and your ignorance."  Dear sister, this proves that in contrast to what is occurring with your human vision, your spiritual vision is becoming sharper and stronger.  Do we not make another observation when we examine ourselves seriously, in good faith?  The saints themselves - and we are not saints - cried out in distress and humility when they measured their misery against God's greatness and beauty.  How great and how infinite is the abyss between the Creator and the creature, God's limitless strength and our weakness, God's being and our insignificant selves.  So, dear sister, how peaceful and even joyous it can be for us to examine ourselves with such humility.  Yes, let's rejoice in being nothing since for us God is everything.  Let's be happy in being truly poor, begging for the help of the one who is rich, and let us take pleasure in being ignorant, since divine wisdom knows us and provides for our needs.  Let us be glad at the very thought of our powerlessness.  It is because of this that we can ask our Lord to take on the entire task, using our sufferings, our poor work, and our miserable prayers.  It is only in heaven that we will realize how wonderfully God made us of the labor of these little workers:  the multitude of small duties, the daily acts of self-sacrifice, the acceptance of pain, offered to the heavenly Father, poor worthless metal transformed by God into gold for others, that pure gold of love enriching others and ourselves.

Elisabeth Leseur

-Elisabeth Leseur (1914) was a French married laywoman whose cause for canonization is under way.