But thou wilt sinne and grief destroy;
That so the broken bones may joy,
And tune together in a well-set song,
Full of his praises,
Who dead men raises.
Fractures well cur'd make us more strong.
~George Herbert

Fractures well cured make us more strong. To measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around, is the path to self-knowledge, says O'Connor. How is it that suffering is something we consider bad, yet is good for us, to make us strong?

Suffering cannot be of benefit only in driving out the evil from our body and soul, for Christ suffered who did no wrong and was made thereby worthy of glory. We want sin and grief destroyed so that we may have joy and the broken instrument may sing again. Written on our frame is the fact that the seed must die before it can be raised. The seed of every thought, the seedling feelings, the strength gone to seed must all die, every day, every other day, in strings of moments threaded throughout a year, to be raised a tougher body, a deeper feeling, a truer thought, and then we will know that what we knew before was only a shard of self.