God allows great saints to find themselves in very difficult situations, there are unimaginably difficult moments when God seems to leave people and is silent, and you feel that you are alone.
And not only that, but all the evil falls on you at once, and one evil follows another, one temptation follows another, one failure after another, and you no longer see God anywhere. You don't feel Him, as if He abandoned you. But we remain convinced that God is present.
As Elder Joseph the Hesychast said to himself when these thoughts choked him: “Everything that you say is good. There is a mass of logical evidence and evidence that all this is as you say. But where is God here? Where is God? Will He leave us in this position? Is it possible for God to leave us? God never leaves us. And if we fry in life's temptations, then God is also there, with us.
And then, when these tribulations pass, we will see that the most spiritually fruitful period of our life, when Christ was really with us, was precisely the period of many tribulations. There, among many sorrows, God's grace is hidden, and not among joys.
Among the joys is also good. And here we also thank God. But who does not say in the midst of joys: “Glory to God”? Isn't it true that when we feel joy, we say: “Glory to God! We are fine!" However, can we say: “Thank God, everything is bad with us! Thank God we are sick! Thank God we are dying! Thank God everything is falling apart around me. But still, thank God.” Like St. John Chrysostom, who always spoke and ended his life with the words: “Glory to God for everything!”
It is a great thing to praise God for everything: both joyful and sorrowful, both easy and difficult, both successes and failures. But most of all, for sorrow. Sorrows make us mature, and when everything is fine with us, then we forget - such is our nature - we forget God, our neighbors, our brothers and all the people suffering around us ...
Metropolitan Athanasius of Limassol