Consider a few quotes from missionary Amy Carmichael.

The word comfort is from two Latin words meaning “with” and “strong” – He is with us to make us strong. Comfort is not soft, weakening commiseration; it is true, strengthening love.

You can always give without loving, but you can never love without giving.

If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting ‘Who made thee to differ [disagree with, be at odds with] and what hat thou that thou hast not received?’ then I know nothing of Calvary love.

All along, let us remember we are not asked to understand, but simply to obey…

Soldiers may be wounded in battle and sent to a hospital. A hospital isn’t a shelf. It’s a place of repair. And a soldier in the spiritual army is never off his battlefield. He is only removed to another part of the battlefield when a wound interrupts what he was meant to do, and sets him doing something else.

A cup brimful of sweetness cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, no matter how suddenly jarred.

We have one crystal clear reason apart from the blessed happiness of this way of life. It is this: prayer is the core of our day. Take prayer out, and the day would collapse, would be pithless, a straw blown in the wind. But how can you pray–really pray, I mean–with one against who you have a grudge or whom you have been discussing critically with another? Try it. You will find it cannot be done.