boundless confidence in the tender love of her heavenly Father, St. Therese surrendered herself entirely to Him. By abandonment she understood the embracing beforehand blindly and with joy and enthusiasm of all that it pleased God to send her no matter how great the suffering involved. Her life was like a blank sheet of paper, at the bottom of which she affixed her signature and then placed it in the hands of God, to let Him write thereon all that might please Him, accepting in advance, with joy and gladness, whatever He would write, not knowing what it might be, but convinced it would be only for His glory and her own spiritual good. "The good God," she said, "wills that I surrender myself like a very wee child who does not trouble himself as to what will be done with him." Accordingly she gave herself to the Child Jesus to be His "little plaything," adding: "I told Him not to treat me like a costly toy that children are content to look at without venturing to touch, but as He would a little ball of no value, that He might throw to the ground, toss about, pierce, leave in a corner or else press to His Heart if it so pleased Him." … "If He wishes to break His 'little plaything' to pieces, He is quite free to do so; yes, I want only what He wills."
In her illness she confessed: "I am now sick and I shall never recover. But I am at peace. For a long time past I have not belonged to myself; I am wholly surrendered to Jesus. If it please Him, I am content to have my sufferings prolonged for years." Come what may.
"Safe in His arms Divine, near His Sacred Face,
Resting upon His Heart, of the storm I have no fear;
Abandonment complete, this is my only law." Even when it is a question of life and death her only guide is still abandonment: "I have no greater desire to live than to die; if Jesus offered me my choice, I would choose nothing. I want only what He wills; it is what He does that I love." For the same reason she could say: "Whatever has come from God's hands has always pleased me, even those things which have seemed
