The
Lightest Cross
"And he went out carrying
his own cross" (John 19:17).
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 about her, and she
wished that she might choose an other instead of her own. She
slept, and in her dream she was led to a place where many
crosses lay, crosses of different shapes and sizes. There was a
little one 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 carvings, 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 that 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 someone 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 twined with flowers. If we could try all the other
crosses that we think lighter than our own, we would at last
find that not one of them suited us so well as our own.
- Glimpses through Life's Windows
