These words of Jesus, "Take up thy cross and follow Me": whoever will do it will be shown by Jesus that the cross of following Him is no burden, but a deliverance, a finding of life, the way of escape, a great joy, and a garland of love.
The world thinks of joyousness as being laughter, cackling, and much silly noise; and to such I do not speak. But the Christ's joyousness is of a high, still, marvellous, and ineffable completeness—beyond all words; and wholly satisfying to heart and soul and body and mind.
It is written, "They shall love silver, and not be satisfied with it"—for why? Only those are satisfied who know the gold of Christ.
All of which is not to say that by following Him we shall escape from happenings and inconveniences and sorrows and illnesses common to life; but that when these come we are raised out of our distress into His ineffable peace.
When the heart is sad, use this sadness in a comprehension of the deeper pain of Jesus, who was in the self-same exile as we ourselves. The more the soul is truly awakened and touched, the more she feels herself to be in exile; and this is her cross.
But the remedy for her sadness is that she should courageously pass out of her woes of exile and go up to meet her lover with smiles. Now, He cannot resist this smiling courage and love of the soul, and very quickly He must send her His sweetness, and her sadness is gone.
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When I say that if we will take a few steps alone towards Christ—which is to say, if we will make some strenuous efforts to cleanse ourselves and change our minds and ways—He will take us all the rest of the way, I speak from experience. For amongst many things this happened to me: at a certain stage, after my third conversion on the hill, He caused my former thoughts, desires, and follies to go away from me! It was as though He had sent a veil between me and such thoughts of my heart and mind as might not be pleasing to Him, so that they disappeared from my knowledge and my actions!
By this marvellous act He removed my difficulties, and put me into a state of innocence which resembled the innocence I remember to have had up to the age of four or five years. But I find this new innocence far more wonderful than that of childhood, which is but the innocence of ignorance. But this new innocence—which is a gift of God—is innocence with knowledge. I am not able to express the gratitude and amazement and wonder that have never ceased to fill me about this. Such things can only be spoken of by the soul to her lover, and then not in words but in a silence of tears.
What did I ever do that He should show me such kindness? I did nothing except this: I desired with all the force of my heart and soul and mind and body to love Him. I said, "Oh, if I could be the warmest, tenderest lover that ever thou didst have! Teach me to be Thy burning lover." This was my perpetual prayer. And my idea of Heaven was and is this, that without so much as knowing, or being known or perceived by any save Himself, without even a name, yet retaining my full consciousness of individuality, I should be with Him for always.