By what yardstick do you measure the value of life? British journalist Mary Craig offered an appealing standard in a book she wrote many years ago, titled Blessings. After a forthright description of her efforts to accept the disabilities of her second son, Paul, she explained her very real grief at his death:
“I owed him an incredible debt. If our value as human beings lies in what we do for each other, Paul had done a great deal: he had, at the very least, opened the eyes of his mother to the suffering that was in the world, and had brought her to understand something of the redemptive force it was capable of generating.”
That was quite the accomplishment for a 10-year-old who was never able to speak, required constant attention, and lived what some would call a vegetative life.
Of suffering, Craig wrote: “The value of suffering does not lie in the pain of it, which is morally neutral – but in what the sufferer makes of it,” which is the essence of Christ’s acceptance of the cross.
Father… not as I will but as You will. (Matthew 26:39)
Jesus, help me bear my crosses.
Taken from Three Minutes a Day (volume 54) by The Christophers