"You asked why?

Sister Briege McKenna, a Franciscan Nun, is renowned the world over for her healing ministry and her talks on the Christian faith and God has worked many miracles of physical healings through her hands. Although she works within this great healing ministry, she knows that sometimes God asks that we endure our sufferings, through love, for His intentions. Here is a story of one such occasion to which she became a witness.
Sr Briege was asked by a young lady to come and pray with her husband who was dying of cancer. The lady told Sr Briege that she hoped she would not be too overcome by the terrible sight of her husband's face as he had half of his face missing, eaten away by the cancer. As Sr Briege entered the room she looked at Jim sitting on the bed and saw that despite his physical appearance, he was radiating a light from his face - he was aglow with the love of God.
Sr Briege sat and prayed with Jim and he told her of an experience that he had had a few days earlier. Jim had woken at 4am to find his pillow soaked in blood. Not wanting to disturb his wife he went to the bathroom to try to stop the bleeding by himself. He began to place tissues upon the open wound to soak up the blood, but it just kept bleeding. Jim felt very low and began to cry with frustration, he felt desperate and so alone - he believed he was going to bleed to death. He cried out several times: "Why? Why? Why?"
Suddenly Jim felt a presence in the room, he turned to look but no one was there. As he turned back he gazed upon one of the tissues in the sink which had flattened out and in the middle of it the blood had collected together to form a perfect Crucifix. Jim could hardly believe what he was seeing - the perfect image of Christ crucified. As he gazed upon this image he heard a voice say: "Tom, you asked why? You asked why? But when I was upon Calvary, bleeding and alone, rejected and condemned to death, I did not ask why, but I said why not - because I love you."
Tom showed Sr Briege the image on the tissue, which he had now placed in a gold locket. Sr Briege claimed it was one of the most powerful images of Christ's sufferings that she had ever seen. Tom told her that he no longer asked for healing from the Lord, because he had a strong sense that Jesus was asking him to offer up his sufferings and unite them to Christ's sufferings. Sr Briege said she could see the presence of God glowing through this man and although he was not physically healed, God had made him beautiful - "God had polished him like a diamond."

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
(2 Corinthians 4:16-18)