Why has my life gotten harder since I came to the Church?

If you are in the church, you will bear a cross. Somebody once famously said, when you look at the cross of Christ, it doesn't really make sense until you're on the cross of Christ. We have to be being crucified with Christ. When our arms are stretched out, when we're run thin, when we have too many children, hypothetically, when they're noisy and they won't stop and it goes on for days at a time and weeks and all kinds of things are happening, and you think, I have nothing left, and it's a Wednesday and now I have to fast on top of it and I have to do these prayers and I'm struggling and I'm slugging through life. When I'm on the cross being crucified, then I understand the gospel. For twelve years I've been preaching the gospel, and I still say to this very day, as Saint Paul said, the cross is repugnant to our flesh. We want ease. We want comfort. We want good times. We want relaxation. We want to feel good. That's what we want. What we don't want is to be crucified with Christ. We have to force ourselves. It takes tremendous willpower and desire for the heart, or you could say the soul, to rule over the body. The body wants ease and comfort and nourishment and to feel good. But the soul has to direct the body for the things that are salvific. So number one is, if you're in the church and you're being crucified and you're being stretched and you're being worn out, you're in the right place doing the right thing. That is how it's supposed to be. No matter how many times you read about the early Christians, you see this. Somebody was saying, I used to believe in the rapture, but then I realized that all the early Christians did not get a rapture. The rapture is the idea that before Christ comes there's going to be a time of persecution, and all the Christians are magically going to go into heaven and none of them are going to be persecuted. It's like, we have never held that view in the church, ever. Ever. Why? Because the early Christians for three hundred years were martyred, and some of them physically crucified like Christ. The Christian life is in imitation of Christ. So when I feel myself crucified, when I feel myself worn out, when I feel that the weight of the cross is too much, I'm in the right place doing the right thing. At any time we can cast the cross off. We can walk out those doors. We can go right back into the world and our life will become more peaceful. But it will not become fulfilling or content.