“And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe” John 19:2

One morning this week I prayed that God would be with me through my day and remind me of his presence. I told Him that I want to know Him better. I went to work and got caught up in the commotion of the day. But then the Lord in a rather unexpected way reminded me that He is close to me and He loves me.

I was organizing some things in a back room. It was quiet and I was by myself. I picked up a heavy item that needed to be moved. I accidently dropped it and set off a chain reaction of crashes, the domino effect. One of the things that fell was a huge bougainvillea and it fell on my head!

Ouch! One of the thorns stabbed my head and a couple of others scratched me. The one that stabbed me actually broke off in my head and I had to scrape the point out of my scalp. I had been “crowned” with thorns. Through the intervention of the Spirit, my thoughts immediately turned to the Lord and His crown of thorns. I remembered the words from John 19:2. The soldiers made a crown of thorns and put it on Jesus.

I knew that my pain was nothing in comparison to what Jesus went through. I was hurting and I had just a few scrapes and one stab wound. Wow, I felt bad. So I can’t imagine the pain the Lord suffered and He suffered it for me. And the crown of thorns was only a small part of the agony that Jesus experienced.

What amazing love that crown of thorns pictured for me. “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). I suffered because I was clumsy. He suffered because I was sinful. “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). He loves me so much that He demonstrated it when He suffered and died for my sins, and he shows it to me day by day.

He showed it to me when He answered my prayer. He was with me through my day. I was reminded of God’s presence in my life and my thoughts were steered towards Him. Being crowned by thorns reminded me that I am loved, because I better understood His suffering and what it meant for me.

Although pain is never fun, I can see how God used it to benefit me. My little disaster could have been so much worse than it was. But the Lord was with me and used this small discomfort to turn my thoughts to Him and to remind me of His goodness.

Thank you, Jesus, for taking the negative and making it good. It is hard to understand how you can take an instrument of torture like a crown of thorns and turn it into a symbol of love and hope. If you can do that, you can certainly take the most despicable things and make them good, even lovely. I pray that you do that for me. Take the wrong, the sin and the pain and turn it into glory for your name.