For God neither made the sheep scarlet or purple, nor taught the juices of herbs and shellfish to dye and color wool. Neither did He arrange necklaces with stones set in gold, and with pearls woven together or clustered, wherewith you would hide the neck which He made.

Across the will of nature
Leads on the path of God;
Not where the flesh delighteth
The feet of Jesus trod.
O bliss to leave behind us
The fetters of the slave,
To leave ourselves behind us,
The grave-clothes and the grave!

We follow in His footsteps;
What if our feet be torn?
Where He has marked the pathway
All hail the brier and thorn!
Scarce seen, scarce heard, unreckoned,
Despised, defamed, unknown,
Or heard but by our singing,
On, children, ever on!

~ Amy Carmichael