On suffering by C.C.

I wrote this for a family a while ago going through a tremendous ordeal. It returned to me today again. 
May it be of comfort.

Lord, may what You send to us in this suffering have us know the love of Your Cross and nearness. It's weight upon us is always heaviest in the places we love the most, this instructs us in Your love and teaches us somehow; the suffering in union with You, even in the obscurity of pain that it unfolds with , You promise us Your nearness.

It is true that You give grace to Your children at their time of suffering that is unknown to us all,until the weight of the Cross is felt upon us.

You supply our need with comfort and consolation unfathomable.

Even as we must grieve and appear to grow weary, we are never without Your sustenance , for we remain most Yours, and You, ours.

Even if our gaze toward Heaven trembles , even if we do not understand, all of Heaven bends to greet us.

You provide for all Your children, always. Help us always to know these ways, give us the clarity of grace we need so to endure what comes.

And in this witness of another's Cross we can be stirred to an empathy, to a charity and love that helps us serve You, that helps us become a hand of brief consolation,a humble aid of grace, while ever being mindful of our nothingness and the "Vale of tears" we too walk .

Keep us ever weighted by Your Cross so to be most exalted in Your love alone,

And help us Lord to comfort another in their time of sorrow and anguish , that our shared union in love with You may bring them the comfort of Your presence, and help us to grow in the knowledge of Your closeness all of our days.

Amen.