A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves...
Of course I want to love Christ in the “distressing disguise.” The problem is - I want to choose the disguise. Just as I say I am willing to take up my cross - though the crosses of others are more appealing to me.

This is where we are tested. The rather obvious distresses aren’t particularly disturbing to me. (Maybe it is just my nature; or that motherhood has left me with a high tolerance of blood, puke and other aesthetically unpleasant bodily fluids and functions.) So my struggle right now is not in loving Christ in the the obviously distressing disguise. It it to love him in the people that I find difficult to love. Those whose distressing disguise is beneath the surface. Not only beneath the surface, but a matter of interpersonal hurt and irritation. That is the challenge.

Just as I have a daughter who would rather hug someone with extreme neurofibromatosis than a well-healed, fabulously manicured society girl, I would prefer to pick maggots off of lepers instead of seeing Christ in a particular person who is plain difficult and contentious. But that is what I must do. This is going to hurt...