Once a poor man, who was complaining to everyone about his cross, about his poverty, dreamed that he was in a large room, which was all lined with crosses of different sizes, and all these crosses were under covers.
A secret voice said to the poor man: “You complain about your cross, about your poverty: choose any other cross for yourself.”
And the poor man began to choose. I took hold of the first cross, but didn’t lift it; Although he lifted the other one, he was too heavy to lift; The third cross did not seem heavy to him, but its corners painfully cut his shoulders.
So he went through all the crosses, but did not find a single one within his power. There was another cross left in the corner, which the poor man did not experience, because this cross seemed larger and heavier to him than the others. Raising this cross, the poor man shouted joyfully:
- This is the cross I will take upon myself: although it is great, it is lighter than others! They removed the cover from this cross, and on it was the inscription: “poverty.”
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru