The cross of Christ is the pledge to us that the deepest suffering may be the condition of the highest blessing; the sign, not of God's displeasure, but of His widest and most compassionate face.
Not till I was shut up to prayer and to the study of God's word by the loss of earthly joys—sickness destroying the flavor of them all—did I begin to penetrate the mystery that is learned under the cross. And wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery! To love Christ, and to know that I love Him—this is all.
Suffering is my gain; I bow
To my Heavenly Father's will,
And receive it hushed and still;
Suffering is my worship now.
Our merciful Father has no pleasure in the sufferings of His children; He chastens them in love; He never inflicts a stroke He could safely spare; He inflicts it to purify as well as to punish, to caution as well as to cure, to improve as well as to chastise.
Some of His children must go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them.
He hears thy faintly sobbing breath,
He marks each quivering limb;
He drank a cup for thee alone—
Child! drink it now with Him.
