Sometimes, we want to escape the cross, but why? We should be careful what we ask for.
If we are called to suffer with Him (and we all are), how will we bear it if we waste energy trying to run from it, even if that seems deceptively like survival? How will we save others, if in hidden ways we are concerned with saving ourselves? How will we finally die to ourselves if we try to escape those small daily deaths from His Hand?

We may at times ask to be freed of some suffering, but God, in His mercy, often does not give us what we ask for. He does not relieve us of the darkness; He rather honors our intellectual assent to suffering and ignores our cries of weakness. He keeps us safe and protected under the shadow of the cross, knowing we would suffer even more if we were to step out from under it, exposed and regretting our rejection of an unspoken covenant. He refuses to let us dishonor Christ by our rejection of these small sharings in His suffering, insisting instead that we learn the lesson in them, that we take another step toward Him in our need to lean on Him. Not another step away.The darknesses in which we find ourselves can be profound. There are subtleties in which discernment is impossible without grace; obvious tests are easier to pass, but these attacks can disorient and stun beyond our resolve. We sometimes feel we have fallen so far we cannot remember which way is up. The School of Love is a difficult one.

But we can learn from these failures, if we are willing to face them. God not only forgives our failures, but uses them to show us what we are, teach us what we must do to be free, and draw us closer to Him by degrees. He uses mud to cure the blind, and the newly-sighted have much reason to rejoice. We will again rejoice.We must beg for the grace to to recall that what we FEEL has no affect on what IS. If prayer feels distracted and worthless, it may yet be pleasing to Him. If we feel desolate and confused, we can still be used by Him. Feeling far from Him does not mean He is far from us. He does His best work when we're not looking.

We must ask for the grace to continue to say "yes" when saying "no" seems so harmless in the short run. Crouched in our dark corners, seeing only our own pain, our burdens appear beyond our own strength. But when we break out of our self-centered preoccupation and remember to look up at the Cross, we see that the true weight of whatever He asks us to bear is pitifully small, and we know (sometimes feebly) that He is bearing it with us.

This should bring us peace, even in turmoil and darkness. Our hearts are restless until they rest in Him, and He cannot abide in a restless heart. So we must ask Him to quiet us.