The Thorn

“And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the fleshy — 2 Cor. xii. 7.

“There was given to me:” can, then, the thorn be a gift from God? I am in the habit of seeing God’s gifts in the abundance of the things which my life possesses, and I call those things the dangers of life which diminish the sum of its abundance. But here there is a complete reversal of my thought; the abundance is the danger, and that which diminishes it is the gift. Paul has been exalted above measure; he has been standing on the heights of prosperity, and summering in the sunshine of a cloudless day. The cloudlessness of the day is his greatest danger, and there is sent a mist over the sun. His spiritual life has been redolent with the breath of flowers, and there is sent a thorn amongst the flowers. The thorn is for the time God’s best gift to his soul; there is something protective in it. It has no fragrance, it has no beauty, but it yields one of the sweetest uses of adversity — it reminds a human spirit that it is after all only human.

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. Thou Divine Love, whose human path has been perfected through sufferings, teach me the glory of my cross, teach me the value of my thorn. Show me that I have climbed to Thee the path of pain. Show me that my tears have made my rainbow. Reveal to me. that my strength was the product of that hour when I wrestled until the breaking of the day. Then shall I know that my thorn was blessed by Thee, then shall I know that my cross was a gift from Thee, and I shall raise a monument to the hour of my sorrow, and the words which I shall write upon it will be these: “It was good for me to have been afflicted”