Thankful for the Thorns Volume# 15 Issue # 4 Date: July 2019

I have recently been reading a book by Mary K. Mohler entitled “Growing in Gratitude: Rediscovering the Joy of a Thankful Heart”—such a needed read in what has been a particularly stretching season of life! In the chapter titled “Thanking God When It Hurts,” she quotes the late Scottish minister and hymn writer George Matheson, who, although blind, was able to aptly praise God for colour even in his suffering. He said: ‘My God, I have never thanked thee for my thorns. I have thanked thee a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorns.  Teach me the glory of the cross I bear; teach me the value of my thorns. Show me that I have climbed closer to thee along the path of pain. Show me that, through my tears, the colours of your rainbow look much more brilliant.’ Thanking God for our thorns? My own heart often struggles to find even peripheral things I can give thanks for during hard seasons, much less giving thanks for the trial itself. With the help of Mohler’s book to guide my thinking, together we can praise God for the thorns.