This year again, wheat is what I'm focusing on (I contemplated the "processed food" thing but that's a little too much to take in)

For Advent I went through "God is in the Manger" -

For Lent, I got "God is on the Cross" - another devotional that includes writings from Boenhoffer.

The first day of Lent:

"...And take up their cross...”

That cross is already there, ready, from the very beginning; we need only take it up. But to keep us from believing that we must simply choose any arbitrary cross, or simply pick out our suffering as we will, Jesus emphasizes that each of us has his or her own cross, ready, appointed, and appropriately measured by God.

~~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

If we choose our own suffering...is it a cross? Does "our cross" necessarily mean that we're suffering for God or the Gospel? Or is it just...suffering?

The idea that GOD has already chosen our path for us, has already appointed our "cross" - our way of suffering for Him, is comforting. It means that He is in control, He knows the path, He saves, He delivers, He KNOWS, and He has a purpose.

In our suffering, WE have a purpose.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.

~~~1 Corinthians 1:3-5