A small affliction borne for God’s sake is better before God than a great work performed without tribulation; for affliction willingly borne brings to light the proof of love…. St. Isaac The Syrian: Homily 36 Someone has famously said, the exact attribution is under dispute, that it is not the mountain that wears us out but the grain of sand in our shoe.  St. Isaac is, I think, saying something similar.  In…