One woman's God-sized view of suffering

As I wait for my guaifenesin and salicylate-free products to arrive in the mail so I can begin the Guaifenesin Protocol, I am face to face with something many of us know well: suffering. The constant pain and fatigue wears us down in a way our family members have a difficult time understanding.

Although I do not like my circumstances and I've cried out to God many times in prayer, my condition remains.

"When God was pleased to call me to Christ's mission, which is a mission of peace and love to the sinful and the wandering, He taught me that I must be willing to be, in some sense, a partaker in Christ's sufferings." by Madame Guyon

I am reminded of a beautiful poem I heard years ago by Madame Guyon. Madame Guyon wrote this poem while in prison in The Bastille. The Bastille held the reputation of being the most horrible prison on earth. There Madame Guyon spent four years in solitary confinement. When she died in 1717, her family found this poem she wrote while in The Bastille.

A little bird am I,
Shut from fields of air
And in my cage I sit and sing
To Him, who placed me there,
Well pleased a prisoner to be,
Because my God, it pleaseth Thee,
Naught have I else to do;
I sing the whole day long;
And He whom most I love to please,
Doth listen to my song.
He caught and bound my wandering wing,
And still He bends to hear me sing.
My cage confines me round;
Abroad I cannot fly,
But though my wing is closely bound
My heart's at liberty.
My prison walls cannot control
The flight, the freedom of the soul.
Oh! it is good to soar,
These bolts and bars above,
To Him whose purpose I adore,
Whose providence I love,
And in Thy mighty will I find
The joy, the freedom of the mind