Revelations of Divine Love

Before this I had had a great and longing desire that God should give me deliverance from this life. I had often considered the woes of this present world, and the joys and blessedness of the future. Even if there had been no suffering in this life, but no Lord either, I sometimes thought it would have been more than I could have borne. This grieved me, and made me long all the more eagerly. Besides, because of my own wretchedness, slothfulness, and incapacity, I did not want to live and toil as it fell to me to do.

To all this our Lord in his courtesy gave me an answer that brought comfort and patience. He said, "Suddenly you will be taken from all your pain, all your sickness, all your discomfort, and all your woe. You will come up above, with me as your reward, and you will be filled to the full with love and blessedness. Never again will there be any sort of suffering, or unhappiness, or failure of will. It will be all joy and bliss eternally. Why should it grieve you to suffer a while, seeing that this is my will and my glory?

–Dame Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, translated by Clifton Wolters, ch64 p177.