You may think God's best saints rarely if ever suffer confusion or bewilderment or disillusion. Not so. They sometimes feel keenly a sense of failure; they often have to negotiate obstacles in the dark; 'My God my God why have you forsaken me?' is their cry too.

But they realize that those experiences of desolation may be God's breaking down the idols and removing false securities. As Gerald Hughes writes, in The God of Surprises, 'This may seem like disintegration, but it is the disintegration of the ear of wheat: if it does not die to bring new life, it shrivels away on its own... God is in all things, so that there is no particle in creation and no experience of yours in which he is not with you.'

Take Lord and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my will, all that I have and possess. Everything I have is yours, for you have given it all to me; to you I return it. Take me, Lord, and do what you like with me, only give me your grace and your love, for that is enough for me. (St Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises)