Suffering is Walking in Jesus' Path

Amy Carmichael was a passionate missionary to India. She gave her life for the sake of those who had suffered the consequences of an unyielding caste system. She also had her suffering, due to physical illness and injury.

In the midst of her suffering, she wrote numerous devotional books that have become classics of encouragement in one’s walk with Jesus. She not only endured suffering; she saw it as the path for the Christian life. It was not suffering for the sake of some kind of ego-driven asceticism. It was an imitation of the Lord she loved. In one of her poems, in which she relayed a “conversation” with Jesus, who asked if she could walk the path He walked: 

His questions can’t be answered;

I can only cry.
I know it is going to be a journey,
Death to self
A daily fight.
I hold the cross before me,
And the world dims behind.
Jesus, go before me,
Jesus, walk alongside.
Jesus, give me strength
To lay down my life.