One experiences God in loss even more powerfully than in attainment. Joseph Symonds, in a book typical of Puritan spirituality, cautioned that “Desertions are not the interruption of God’s love, but of the acts of his love; his affection is the same, but the expression is varied.”6 He pointed to the “absences of God” as occasions for encountering a love more subtle and profound. Once they gain this insight, “the faithful usually find their worst days their best days. . . . The capacity of the soul is widened, and enlarged in affliction. . . . He that is most athirst, drinks most.”7
