The Carmelite nun, St Thérèse of Lisieux (1873 – 1897), lived a life that was externally unremarkable, but she knew more inner storms than most.
She wrote
“I was alone in a desert waste, or rather, my soul was like a fragile skiff tossing without a pilot in a stormy sea. I knew that Jesus was there, asleep in my little boat, but the night was too black for me to see him.
“All was darkness.
“Not even a flash of lightning pierced the clouds. There’s nothing reassuring about lightning, but, at least if the storm had burst, I should have been able to glimpse Jesus. But it was night, the dark night of the soul.”
(Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux).
People passing her monastery would probably have said, “What a peaceful life they have there!”
But as St Thérèse said, Jesus was there, though apparently asleep.
He slept a lot in her company, she noticed!
But she made excuses for him: other people rarely let him sleep, and so he would come to her for a break.