“The swiftest steed to bear you to your goal is suffering... Nothing is more gall-bitter than suffering, nothing so honey sweet as to have suffered. The most sure foundation for this perfection is humility, for he whose nature here creeps in deepest depths shall soar in spirit to highest height of deity; for joy brings sorrow and sorrow brings joy.”

Eckhart

“I wouldn’t have written the script of my life this way, Lord.” 

“What would you have changed my son?” 

“I would have deleted unnecessary pain.” 

“What kind of pain is that?” 

“Senseless misunderstandings, incurable illnesses, and undeserved injustice. These produce nothing but aches in my heart and anguish in my soul. I could have done without them Father.” 

“I too could have done without sin’s shadows and pain’s piercing. But because of choices made long ago and choices re-made every moment I myself had a choice to make: turn my back on sin’s shadows or personally embrace pain’s piercing.” 

“What did you choose Father?”

 “I chose the path of what you call ‘unnecessary’ pain.”

 “Why? How?” 

“Actually, You helped me. Before you were born, I saw you and my love for you was greater than life. Through sweat and blood, I measured my love for you and its passion fixed my life willingly to a cross. By embracing pain, I robbed sin of its power to crush you.” 

“Then the shadows will not destroy me! But there are still tears in my heart and aches in my soul.” 

“Yes. They are in mine as well. But even there you can find a treasure if you allow the tears in your heart and aches in your soul to grow dependence upon me in your spirit.”  

Aren’t you glad our Father loved us enough to suffer for us?  There is nothing in our lives as great as the pain and suffering that He endured for our opportunity to have life.  What things in your life seem to be one of the pains of life that you just cannot get rid of?  Take the time to thank God for them now, and you will fulfill the words of Paul in Philippians 3:10, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”