I wanted to add some quotes that I have personally been reflecting on, or have personally found to be really soothing, helpful and supportive at this time:
Besides all this, prayer is the cause of awakening and mindfulness and conducive to protection and preservation from tests. Abdul Baha
Be generous in prosperity, and Thankful in adversity. Bahaullah
Be worthy of the trust of thy neighbour. Bahaullah
Should one who is in affliction or grief read this Tablet with absolute sincerity, God will dispel his sadness, solve his difficulties, and remove his afflictions. Bahaullah, the Tablet of Ahmed, Bahai Prayers
Do ye not look upon the beginning of the affairs; attach your hearts to the ends and results. The present period is like unto the sowing time. Undoubtedly it is full of perils and difficulties, but in the future many a harvest shall be gathered and benefits and results will become apparent. When one considers the issue and the end, exhaustless joy and happiness will dawn. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
The same test comes again in greater degree, until it is shown that a former weakness has become a strength, and the power to overcome evil has been established. Abdul Baha
I know that thou art in difficulty, but this difficulty is conductive to the everlasting felicity and this weakness is followed by the supreme strength. Abdul Baha
Not until a man is tried doth the pure gold distinctly separate from the dross. Torment is the fire of test wherein the pure gold shineth resplendently. At present thou art, praise be to God, firm and steadfast in tests and trials and are not shaken by them. Abdul Baha
To the loyal soul, a test is but God’s grace and favour; for the valiant doth joyously press forward to furious battle on the field of anguish, when the coward, whimpering with fright, will tremble and shake. Abdul Baha
Our past is not the thing that matters so much in this world as what we intend to do with our future. Shoghi Effendi
You are encouraged to continue to keep in mind the spiritual dimension of your struggles. We are assured by Abdul Baha in the following words: “the more difficulties one sees in the world the more perfect one becomes.”
The words Bahaullah wrote to one of the American Assemblies in December 1923 sound almost like a soliloquy: "The inscrutable wisdom of God has so decreed that we, who are the chosen bearers of the world's greatest Message to suffering humanity, should toil and promote our work under the most trying conditions of life, amidst unhelpful surroundings, and in the face of unprecedented trials, and without means, influence or support, achieve, steadily and surely, the conquest and regeneration of human hearts." Ruhiyyih Khanum
And yet, how often we seem to forget the clear and repeated warnings of Our beloved Master, Who, in particular during the concluding years of His mission on earth, laid stress on the "severe mental tests" that would inevitably sweep over His loved ones of the West -- tests that would purge, purify and prepare them for their noble mission in life. Shoghi Effendi
May they be granted the celestial strength to pass, over and over again, the mental tests which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá promised He would send to them to purify them, thus enabling them to achieve their divinely conferred potential as a force for change in the world. The Universal House of Justice
