The Pathway Of Pain - Poem by Helen Steiner Rice

The Pathway Of Pain

If my days were untroubled and my heart always light,

Would I seek that fair land where there is no night?

If I never grew weary with the weight of my load,

Would I seek for God’s peace at the end of the road?

If I never knew sickness and never felt pain,

Would I search for a hand to help and sustain?

If I walked without sorrow and lived without loss

Would my soul seek solace at the foot of the cross?

If all I desired was mine day by day,

Would I kneel before God and earnestly pray?

If God sent no winter to freeze me with fear,

Would I yearn for the warmth of spring every year?

I ask myself these and the answer is plain,

If my life were pleasure and I never knew pain -

I’d seek God less often and need Him much less,

For God is sought more often in times of distress.

And no one knows God or sees Him as plain -

As those who have met Him on the "Pathway of Pain."

Helen Steiner Rice

Ecclesiastes 7:2-5  It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.

Ecclesiastes 7:14  In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8  To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:11  He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.