Thankful For The Thorns

2Co 12:10  Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.

Here is the secret of Divine all-sufficiency, to come to the end of everything in ourselves and in our circumstances. 

When we reach this place, we will stop asking for sympathy because of our hard situation or bad treatment, for we will recognize these things as the very conditions of our blessing, and we will turn from them to God and find in them a claim upon Him.

~A. B. Simpson~

George Matheson, the well-known blind preacher of Scotland, who recently went to be with the Lord, said: "My God, I have never thanked Thee for my thorn.

I have thanked Thee a thousand times for my roses, but not once for my thorn.

I have been looking forward to a world where I shall get compensation for my cross; but I have never thought of my cross as itself a present glory.

Teach me the glory of my cross; teach me the value of my thorn. 

Show me that I have climbed to Thee by the path of pain.

Show me that my tears have made my rainbows.

Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through the cypress trees.