(translation to English of my last article in Swedish)
(if you want, you can listen to this amazing song as you read)
Dear suffering soul. Do not despair, for through suffering you get part of the best gift life
has to give; mercy to those who suffer. The quintessence of love. What would we not sacrifice
to receive the best gift in life? Very much. Some of us do not have to sacrifice, we are given
the gift of suffering undeservedly. So that we may partake of life's greatest gift, mercy. The
mystic Martinus Thomsen wrote in his Book of Life that when we enter the kingdom of bliss,
our sufferings will be what we remember with the greatest tenderness and gratitude, for
through them we got a share in the best life has to offer.
Do not despair, even if your sufferings seem to go on indefinitely. A beautiful day, and that
day can come before you die, your worst sufferings are over, and that day can come at any
time. Then you will thank God for the child who was born through your birth pangs, and see
the benefit of the birth pangs. All our sufferings are birth pangs, for something to be born in
our being. Something immensely exalted above all material things that we can receive as a
gift. Satan envies us this gift, the mercy which he has not, for he has lived in comfort all his
days, as lord and god. The poor shall inherit the earth, for through their sufferings they have
been made able to rule. The meek shall inherit the earth, those who lie down and bleed in
humiliation, for they have that which is essential to all government, mercy. By suffering, they
can come to the aid of those who suffer. And a king's most important task is to alleviate suf-
fering in his kingdom, remember that. Solomon understood this in Psalm 72 in The Psalms.
Those who have gone through the great tribulation, the great suffering, are been made able
to become priests and kings of God and Christ, "You have made them a kingdom, priests to
our God, and they will reign on the earth." (Rev. 5:10) So when you suffer, take it as a favor
that you have been chosen to be God's priest and king to rule the new earth once. It does
not feel that way now, but once will you feel the blessing of suffering, and then you will forget
your sufferings as a woman who has recently given birth forgets her birth pangs in pure joy
over the newborn baby. The birth pangs feel long and unbearable while they are going on,
but who does not want to sacrifice it to to hold a newborn baby in his arms? In suffering
God makes you pregnant with mercy, and one day you will give birth to mercy, compassion
in glory, and be made able to rule over the people of the earth. You have become rich, you
have received something greater than a newborn child, you have received the main gift of
existence, mercy, love. Every hour you suffer, your account in heaven increases, the money
of mercy, and once you will be allowed to withdraw the money from your account that has
accumulated there, whose blessing you did not get to taste while you were collecting them.
Think like that when you suffer, you become truly rich now, you collect treasures in heaven,
get a share of what will help you help your neighbor. You just may not see and taste your
wealth now, but in reality you are getting pregnant with your wealth, hidden from yourself.
And once the day will come when your suffering is eternally over, and then you will cry with
joy and rejoicing. God has made you able for eternal life in the millennial kingdom, and you
will for a thousand years live a full human life in a glorified matter, where all your suffering
will be compensated for, and not just as justice demands, but a hundredfold, a thousandfold.
God is so generous to those who have suffered. Those who suffer are the apple of his eye
in life, remember this, for he himself has suffered here on earth in the form of Jesus, more
than any other being has suffered, therefore he may be our merciful King and High Priest.
But woe unto them who has fattened themselves in the day of slaughter, and have dwelt
in comfort and riches all the days of their life upon the earth! They have already received
their reward, says Jesus, and that means that they cannot be part of the millennial kingdom,
but are lost in the micro-life, in the dust. When they realize what they have earned, they will
weep and grind their teeth, and look with envious glances at those who have suffered during
the earthly life, and then they will wish in their quiet minds that they could buy the bliss of
the faithful with all they have earned during their earthly lives, but it is impossible, they can
not buy oil when the bridegroom has come, for the ones who does not have oil themselves.
Read the parable of the ten virgins in Matt. 25: 1-13. They will knock feverishly at the gate,
but will not be let in, for they do not have the oil of mercy, the love being of the Holy Spirit
in them.
Therefore, if you have never suffered, seek the sufferings of love, or ask God to give you
the gift of suffering, so you can buy oil. Oil only arises in suffering. It is impossible to get
oil if you do not suffer. For suffering gives compassion, pity. And then the Spirit of the
Lord may whisper to you that you should sell all that you have and give the money to the
poor, and become a homeless beggar yourself, so that you can buy the oil of love. Or quit
the system in other ways, which always involves suffering. Who knows. You know where
the shoe is squeezing.
There are stories of Christians in the first Christian church who sought martyrdom in order
to get the martyr's crown. They did desperate things in order to follow martyrs in martyrdom.
You do not have to go that far. A two-week fast on rainwater is enough in order to give the
food money to a poor beggar on the streets of Stockholm, then you suddenly know what it
is like to go hungry, and behold, pity is born in you.
But the greatest sufferings are those that the Lord chooses for us, that we do not choose
for ourselves. They are also the heaviest to carry, and thus the ones that provide the most
oil. We lack control then, lack control over our destiny, just have to bow to providence and
hope for the best. We can not quit whenever we want, so to speak. Praise yourself blessed
if you have experienced such sufferings, they are the true martyrs' sufferings. Every soul
that has suffered like this is a martyr, and will receive the crown of martyrdom, not just
those who died for their faith. In fact, dying for one's faith is a lesser sacrifice than carrying
the yoke of suffering year after year. Dying goes so fast and gives you the pay so quickly.
You do not practice patience, this virtue of virtues. Just as mercy cannot be obtained
without suffering, neither can patience be obtained without waiting, waiting and waiting.
The oil of patience burns slowly and steadily for a long time.
And remember that the compensation for your sufferings, which once come in the millennial
kingdom, is in proportion to your sufferings. Not in fair proportion, albeit a thousandfold,
but he who has suffered more may taste more joy than he who has suffered less. Therefore,
you should praise yourself happily if you suffer a lot, because then the salary will be extra
large. This spirit runs through what the apostle Peter writes in his first letter:
"12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you,
as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice inasmuch as you
participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is
revealed. 14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the
Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or
thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16 However, if you suffer as a
Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name."
(1 Pet. 4:12-16)
What are the sufferings of Christ? It is suffering that gives oil, that gives compassion.
There are sufferings that are not the sufferings of Christ, such as the sufferings of self-pity.
Self-pity does not give oil, so if you suffer from it, you should pray to the Lord for
deliverance, and ask for the gift of being able to praise God for your sufferings, for when
you suffer for Christ, the Spirit of Glory rests upon you.
We do not see it and do not feel it. It is because we are inside a long, dark tunnel, so
long that the light at the other end does not reach us. But outside the tunnel a beautiful
spectacle appears, angels hovering over us and Christ himself praying for us to endure,
bent over us with his hand over our foreheads. We have trained a long time upon this
in heaven, before we descended into our bodies, and Christ knows that. One day we
will remember all this. And we must remember that in the training in heaven we trained
extra hard in the faith, that faith as it were was the key with which we could perceive
some of what was going on outside the tunnel, and remember some of what we learned
during the training in heaven. So nourish yourself with faith when you suffer, not with
suicidal thoughts and escape routes, but with the Word of the Lord, which breeds faith
in you. Then you will soon come across words like Saint Paul's words that everything
serves them for the good who loves God, and so on. Have such words as lanterns inside
your tunnel, let them massage your aching body, and practice staying in this faith cons-
ciousness that you get from reading such words, which make you for a moment hold
your head above the water and gasp for breath, in order to then continue your dangerous
diving journey again. Or why not the parable that in such moments we stick our heads
above the clouds and see the sun for a little while, see the whole blue sky and the libera-
tion of eternal light. In order to then return to the gray reality, where the sky is always
gray and hard as concrete. You must remember such epiphany moments when you suffer.
You should practice remembering them. Remember the good deeds of the Lord against
you, It will give you marrow in your bones when you suffer. The Lord's comfort is abun-
dant, but you must bring the comfort into your suffering, and not forget it.
Once the worst is over. Remember that. It's like climbing the Himalayas, and now you're
going to go down again. It is much easier to go down than to go up. That moment may
already be here, that you have already experienced the worst in your life, and that from
that moment everything becomes easier day by day. Your fire test is over, now you get
to enjoy the fruits of it, that you passed the test. I myself have such a feeling that "the time
of my suffering is over". I have suffered such terrible sufferings. Sometimes I thought I had
suffered more than Christ. Now I have entered a stable life where it feels as if the future is
certain and secure. Do you have such an experience? Then you will rejoice, for it is a great
moment when the worst is over. Then you have in a way already won. The whole thing is
a bit like when Christ triumphed at Calvary, then the worst was over in the divine history,
and the decisive victory was won. You may have had your Calvary. If you have had a
Calvary, then you belong to the crowd of martyrs, and are now crucified with Christ until
he comes back, Christ's slave and prisoner, because of the compassion for the suffering
ones born in you. You have the wounds of Christ on your body in a symbolic sense, your
mark of nobility, your hallmark. Now you can, in the moment of the epiphany, see how rich
you have become, and look forward to the day when you will be able to withdraw the money
from your account in heaven. The joy of your riches will carry you the way that remains.
And what is your wealth? Christ is your riches. You have won his heart with your endurance
in the furnace of suffering. Then you will be God's heir and co-heir with Christ. You will
then inherit everything, in other words. Everything becomes yours. Because you perse-
vered in the moment of trial, without becoming bitter, becoming an atheist or committing
suicide. But even suicide committers can be martyrs and get the crown of martyrs, because
of the oil they may have collected before they died by their own hand.
The resurrection from the dead at the beginning of the millennial kingdom is the resur-
rection of the martyrs, when the holy word from Jesus' mouth that the meek will inherit the
earth, will come true, and the last will be the first and the first the last. If you are among
the lowest valued here on earth, you will rejoice extra much, for great will be your reward
in heaven, you will be among the first, you who were among the last.
With these words, I end this contemplation of suffering, and I pray for you who read this
that the Lord, through my words, will comfort you deep inside your heart. This comment
is what I learned from suffering.
