Brother Lawrence saw death draw near without perturbation, his patience had been great indeed through all his life, but it waxed stronger ever as he approached the end. He was never in the least fretful, when he was most wracked with pain; joy was manifest not only on his countenance, but still more in his speech, so much so in fact that those who visited him were constrained to ask whether he was not suffering. “Forgive me,” he replied. “Yes, I do suffer, the pains in by side sore trouble me, but my spirit is happy and well content.”

They added, “Suppose God will that you suffer for ten years, what then?”

“I would suffer.” he answered, “not for ten years only, but till the day of judgment, if it be God’s will; and I would hope that he would continue to aid me with His grace to bear it joyfully.”

His one desire was that he might suffer something for the love of God, for all his sins, and finding in his last illness a favorable occasion for suffering in this life, he embraced it heartily. Purposely he bade the brethren to turn him on to his right side; he knew that this position gave him great pain, and therefore wished to remain therein to satisfy his burning desire to suffer. A brother, who was watching at his bed, wished to relieve him in some measure; but twice he answered, “I thank you, my dear brother, but I beg of you to let me bear just a little for the love of God.” Often the hour of pain he would cry out with fervor, “My God I worship Thee in my infirmities. Now, now, I shall have something to bear for Thee–good, be it so, may I suffer and die with Thee.” Then he would repeat those verses of the fifty-first Psalm, “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Cast me not away from Thy Presence. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.”

–Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God