Offering Up Suffering

    I was having a terrible moment.  I could not pray or feel God at all.  I was feeling trapped in despair.
    Then, I recalled Jesus on the cross saying, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"  And I too felt forsaken.  Yet that linked me back with Jesus, and made Him not feel so far after all.
    So I decided, against all odds, to offer my upset up--to be joined with Christ in His suffering on the cross, for the resolution of that problem.  I repeated over and over, "I offer it up for the solution to this problem.  I offer it up for the solution to this problem."  I must have repeated that a hundred times.

    It worked.  Offering up suffering can be done from the most despondent of places--because Christ too was despondent.