"The Cross is a revelation to our dull senses, the pain that from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God."   A 7000-year Cross.  With implications for eternal consequences.  Can you think 500 million years into the future?  The time when God goes into a corner and remembers His children.  The Cross is there forever.  The scars are never removed from the hands and side of Christ.  They're always there.  Forever and ever of what might have been, of what might have come of all of His children.  "All who dwell upon the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain..."  From when?  "...from the foundation of the world. (Rev 13:8)"  This is, of course, a reference to the world.  The Cross existed before this in Heaven, but from the foundation of the world, Christ was slain because the Cross is self-denial and self-sacrifice.  That's what it is.

This quote … as I meditated upon it and praised God, I started to think about Him and as you start to think about Him, your heart goes out to Christ.  You start to think about His suffering; you start to think about His agony, and your thoughts shift from yourself and the agony that you're experiencing, and you start to think about His suffering and agony, and at that moment, life comes into the soul, and you stop thinking about yourself, and you start thinking about Him.