芙蘭納莉．歐康納（Flannery O’Connor）是美國南方最著名的作家之一，她所寫的故事交織著苦難與上帝的恩典。在她15歲那年，她深愛的父親因患紅斑性狼瘡而逝世。歐康納深受打擊，促使她全心投入創作她的第一本小說。不久後，她自己也被診斷患有紅斑性狼瘡，這種無法治癒的疾病最終在她39歲時，奪走她的性命。歐康納的作品反映她身心飽受折磨。另一個小說家如此評論她：「我認為，正是這個疾病讓她成為一位非凡的作家。」

儘管有許多推測，但我們仍不知道使徒保羅說的「刺」是什麼（哥林多後書12章7節），只知道保羅說：「為這事，我三次求過主，叫這刺離開我」（8節），但上帝沒有除去這根刺（9節）。這根刺使保羅謙卑，他說這讓他不致「過於自高」（7節）。保羅的刺塑造他，使他成為上帝重用的僕人。這根刺並不代表一切，因伴隨而來的是上帝所賜充足的恩典，祂也以大能塑造我們，所以這位受苦的使徒可以宣告：「我什麼時候軟弱，什麼時候就剛強了。」（10節）

我們生命中的刺，無論是什麼，都塑造了我們，也造就了現在的我們。那些刺並不代表一切。正如保羅、歐康納以及歷史中無數人所見證的那樣，上帝的恩典夠我們用。

Born Mary Flannery O’Connor, she’s best known as Flannery O’Connor, one of the American South’s most celebrated writers. Her stories brim with suffering and grace. When her beloved father died of lupus when she was fifteen, a devastated O’Connor threw herself into writing her first novel. Soon she herself was diagnosed with lupus, an incurable disease that took her life at thirty-nine. O’Connor’s writing reflects her physical and mental anguish. Novelist Alice McDermott said, “It was the illness I think that made her the writer that she is.”

We don’t know what the apostle Paul’s “thorn” was (2 Corinthians 12:7), though many have offered conjecture. We do know that Paul said, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me” (v. 8). We also know God didn’t do so (v. 9). This humbled Paul. He notes how it kept him “from becoming conceited” (v. 7). Paul’s thorn formed him and made him the apostle that he was. But the thorn wasn’t all, for with the thorn came God’s sufficient grace and perfecting power, so the tormented apostle could declare, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (v. 10).

The thorns in our lives, whatever they may be, form us. They make us who we are. But the thorns aren’t all there is. As Paul and Flannery O’Connor and countless others have witnessed over the long arc of human history, God’s grace is sufficient for us.