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| Thomas a Kempis |
Vira Chandra: I was chatting with a friend. Before telling me what was on his mind he half-smiled and said, “I know your life is heavier than mine, but I’ve got my struggles too.”
For a single breath I felt a muted satisfaction—So he finally admits it: my load must be the heavier one.
The thought had barely formed when a line from The Imitation of Christ came to mind:
“What others bear with ease may be hard for you, and what seems burdensome to them may be light for you.
Each has his own trial appointed by God, and none is without a cross in this life.”
—The Imitation of Christ, Book II, Chapter 12, § 2 (tr. William Benham, 1886)
Weighing crosses is a spiritual dead end
We instinctively rank suffering as if there were a universal scale: whose pain is “real,” whose burden counts. Thomas à Kempis overturns that habit. A trial is not a contest; it is a tailor-made interior work. Some crosses are obvious; others are invisible. What seems light in public may bruise in private. And what looks crushing can be carried quietly with grace.
Whatever name your tradition gives to the shaping of experience—grace, karma, providence—the point is the same: each soul receives a weight fitted to its own unfolding.
Pride in disguise
My friend’s remark exposed a subtle danger: the temptation to see my hardships as somehow more spiritual, proof that I am running a tougher, nobler course. That is simply pride in religious clothing. Thomas brings the cure in the next verse:
“If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you.”
—Book II, Chapter 12, § 3
Gladness here does not mean liking the burden or pretending it is light. It means receiving the task without envy, resentment, or exhibition—letting the cross do its hidden work instead of turning it into a badge.
When the cross becomes a teacher
Crosses arrive from many directions—our choices, others’ failures, sheer mystery—but once they are in our hands, they shape us. Carried truthfully, they train the heart to steadiness, strip away the need to compare, and open space for compassion. Carried falsely, they inflate the ego, breeding resentment or self-display.
Thomas concludes the same chapter with a promise often missed because of its stark language:
“In the cross is salvation; in the cross is life; in the cross is protection from enemies… in the cross alone is poured a heavenly sweetness.”
—Book II, Chapter 12, § 29 (in cruce sola est infusio caelestis dulcedinis)
That “heavenly sweetness” is not masochism; it is the quiet strength that appears when we stop fighting the weight, own it calmly, and discover that love grows precisely there.
A simple reply
So I answered my friend without hierarchy: Your cross is yours; mine is mine. Neither is small. We talked, we listened, and the conversation became lighter than any unspoken competition.
Carry your cross, friend—not proudly, not for show, but with the steady humility that lets it carry you in return. When the weight is borne in that spirit, what presses you down today may be the very thing that raises you tomorrow.
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