Pain

"There was given to me a thorn in the flesh." 2 Corinthians 12:7

Pain has a great mission. While God does not send pain, He lets it stay, though He might intervene and take it away. While as a rule, with possibly rare exceptions, it comes through sin, it remains through the deliberate purpose of God. God has a great purpose of love in pain. He uses it as His teacher. It is the greatest of all His great teachers. It charges the very highest rates, insists upon the severest discipline, will tolerate nothing short of the highest ideal, needs our sympathetic help in working, and produces the very finest results. - D. S. Gordon

O Christ of Calvary, this Lent
Has brought Thee strangely near;
Perhaps it is because I too
Have borne a cross this year.

I did not climb Golgotha's brow
Nor in Thy sufferings share;
But knowing Thee has made my cross
Much easier to bear.

It somehow granted me a part
In Thy great sacrifice;
Thus sorrow has its recompense
Where joy cannot suffice.

O Christ, dear Christ of Calvary,
In gratitude I bow;
Thy resurrection day will dawn
With deeper meaning now.

Alice Hansche Mortenson

Taken from "Manna in the Morning"