God knows best what cross we need to bear!

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(J.R. Miller)

There is a poem called "The Changed Cross." It represents a weary one who thought that her cross was surely heavier than those of others whom she saw around her, and wished that she might choose another cross instead of her own.

She slept, and in her dream she was led to a place where many crosses lay--crosses of various types, shapes and sizes.

There was a little cross most beauteous to behold, set in jewels and gold. "Ah, this I can wear with comfort," she said. So she took it up, but her weak form shook beneath it. The jewels and the gold were beautiful, but they were far too heavy for her.

Next she saw a lovely cross with fair flowers entwined around its sculptured form. Surely that was the one for her. She lifted it, but beneath the flowers were piercing thorns which tore her flesh.

At last, as she went on, she came to a plain cross, without jewels, without ornate carving, with only a few words of love inscribed upon it. This she took up, and it proved the best of all, the easiest to be borne. And as she looked upon it, bathed in the radiance which fell from Heaven--she recognized her own old cross. She had found it again, and it was the best of all, and lightest for her!

God knows best what cross we need to bear!

We do not know how heavy other people's crosses are.

We envy one who is rich--his is a golden cross set with jewels. But we do not know how heavy it is.

Here is another whose life seems very lovely. She bears a cross entwined with flowers. But we do not know what sharp thorns are hidden beneath the flowers.

If we could try all the other crosses which we think are lighter than ours, we would at last find that not one of them suited us as well as our own!

"I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." Psalm 119:75
"For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Hebrews 12:10-11
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