“There was given to me a thorn in the flesh,” wrote the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:7). As much as he prayed about it, he was never healed of this unnamed issue. Instead, God used it as a way to teach him (and the rest of us) that “My grace is sufficient for you.” It’s an important truth for the folks who think that the more you pray about an issue, like a health or relationship problem, the more likely you’ll experience healing or have the problem removed. Yes, God hears our prayers, but He doesn’t always answer them the way we think He should. “Prayer-storming” the throne is like whipping up votes for a favorite cause. It’s not the way God works. Often He leaves us smack in the middle of our “thorns.” When we don’t see God’s perspective, we often whine, “Why has God left me?” or “Why has God let me down?” The truth is this: He can use thorns.
Several years ago a friend send me an E-mail forward that has probably gone around the world a few times. Titled “Thorns,” it’s a fiction about a young woman who miscarried after an auto accident. Full of gloom, she walked into a florist shop. Before she could make her selection, other customers came in for the “Thanksgiving Special.” She was incredulous when they left with boxes of thorny rose stems, no blooms. Each had a story of profound loss, even greater than that of the disillusioned mother.
Finally the clerk told of her own losses, and how she learned to be thankful for how the “thorns” of life helped her discover the beauty of God’s comfort. “Don’t resent the thorns,” the clerk said. The young woman took home her first bouquet of thorns, along with a card that said: “My God, I have never thanked You for my thorns. I have thanked you a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorns. Teach me the glory of the cross I bear; teach me the value of my thorns. Show me that I have climbed closer to You along the path of pain. Show me that through my tears, the colors of Your rainbow look much more brilliant.”
The essence of this quote comes from Moments on the Mount by George Matheson, a Scottish preacher and hymn-writer. His best known hymn, which includes some of those phrases, was “O Love, that will not let me go.” Matheson’s “thorn” was blindness. But he also had a phenomenal memory which enabled him to memorize sermons and minister to a congregation of 2,000 in Edinburgh.
It’s not lost on me that the friend who sent me this popular E-mail story had an excruciating thorn in her life. Cecilia spent decades in a wheelchair as a form of muscular dystrophy progressively froze her body. Before becoming a Christian, she was angry at God for her disease. After she yielded her life to Christ, there was a change to accepting her physical thorn and seeing what God could do through her. I remember her vibrant smile, her prayerful interest in others, and her desire to be a beacon for Christ in the building for special-needs people where she lived. She also volunteered in school reading programs, her wheelchair putting her eye contact at just the right level for grade school children.
One time I visited her, she confided, “I just feel it won’t be long for me here.” A few months later, suffering with a respiratory infection, she asked personal-care aides to leave her in her motorized wheelchair for the night, rather than putting her in bed. It was too hard to breathe. During the night she fell out of her chair, breaking many bones. A few days later, she went to be with the Lord she loved.
Have you despised your life thorns? Do you need a Thanksgiving Bouquet?
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