Your Cross
Jim Koerner saw too much. In fighting with the 10th Armored Division he saw buddies wounded and killed by small arms fire, artillery, mines, and booby traps. In December 1944 he was separated from his unit and captured by the Germans, suffering constantly from exposure, hunger, and Allied bombing attacks. After the war he continued to suffer nervous depression and had to take tranquilizers to function. His father had committed suicide before him, and twice, in his confused state, he held a gun to his own head. He declared that his salvation came in a prayer that he found in the wallet of a deceased friend:
Your Cross
The everlasting God has in His wisdom foreseen from eternity the cross that He now presents you as a gift from His inmost heart. The cross He now sends you He has considered with His all-knowing eyes, understood with His divine mind, tested with His wise justice, warmed with loving arms, and weighed with His loving hands to see that it be not one inch too large and not one ounce too heavy for you. He has blessed it with His holy name, anointed it with His grace, perfumed it with His consolation, taken one last glance at you and your courage, and then sent it to you from heaven, a special greeting from God to you and alms of the all merciful love of God.476
I now carry this prayer in my own wallet as a constant reminder that God will not give me more to do or to bear in this life than I can handle. With Him beside me I can endure any trial and see any task through to completion. Jesus said, “Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” (John 14:12). We can have faith that, whatever cross we bear, it is the cross that he has given us. He will also give us the strength to carry it.
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
—Luke 9:23