John Chrysostom: Wait on Providence

Let us not take this with a grain of salt; instead, let us learn also from this the highest values, and when we fall foul of some disaster, even if we are suffering grief and pain, even if the trouble seems insupportable to us, let us not be anxious or beside ourselves, but wait on God's providence. He is well aware, after all, when is the time for what is causing us depression to be removed - which is what happened in her case as well. It was not out of hatred, in fact, nor of revulsion that he closed her womb, but to open to us the doors on the values the woman possessed, and for us to espy the riches of her faith and realize that he rendered her more conspicuous on that account.

- John Chrysostom (around A.D. 347 to around A.D. 407), Homilies on Hannah, Homily 1, in St. John Chrysostom, Old Testament Homilies, Volume 1, pp. 74-75 (2003), Robert C. Hill translator.