Pathway Of Pain

(or The Way To God)

If my days were untroubled and my heart always light,

Would I seek that fair land where there is no night?

If I never grew weary with the weight of my load,

Would I search for God’s Peace at the end of the road?

If I never knew sickness and never felt pain,

Would I reach for a hand to help and sustain?

If I walked not with sorrow and lived without loss,

Would my soul seek sweet solace at the foot of the cross?

If all I desired was mine day by day,

Would I kneel before God and earnestly pray?

If God sent no “winter” to freeze me with fear,

Would I yearn for the warmth of “spring” every year?

I ask myself this and the answer is plain -

If my life were all pleasure and I never knew pain

I’d seek God less often and need Him much less,

For God's sought more often in times of distress.

And no one knows God or sees Him as plain

As those who have met Him on “The Pathway of Pain.”

by Helen Steiner Rice.