God's answer to Paul's thrice-prayed prayer for relief from the thorn in the flesh: my grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). The verse refuses the modern Christian instinct that God's grace must remove the trial. Sometimes it does; in Paul's case it did not, and the not-removal was itself the lesson. Sufficient grace means: enough for this hour, enough for this weakness, enough for this thorn, with the strength of Christ rested on the weak servant precisely in the place of his weakness. Paul's response is the disposition Scripture commends: most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. The thorn that remains becomes the site of the strength that comes — the very theology of the cross written into a personal life.