"Men and boys were trussed and suspended from the ceilings so that their weight hung on the shoulders. Thus they were raised and lowered til unconscious. They had their fingers pressed over red hot wires. Their naked flesh was lacerated with sharp hooks and seared with hot irons. Toenails were torn from the flesh with pincers. Men were placed in a tight box and then screwed up. They were tied up, their heads forced back, and hot water or a solution of water and red pepper poured down their nostrils. Slivers of wood were shoved far under their fingernails. They were flogged until they had to be taken to hospitals, where big slabs of gangrenous skin had to be cut off. In many cases they were flogged to death. [These tortures] were not done once or twice, but repeatedly for days and nights, hours at a time, until the victim confessed, whether he had anything to confess or not..."

A 21-year-old Christian female from Pyongyang gave Presbyterian missionaries a signed statement of how women were treated. I will not be able to share all of what she said. But the most dedicated followers of Jesus were humiliated, beaten into unconsciousness, burned with lighted cigarettes, compelled to "baby-sit" the bodies of dead men, bound hand and foot in stocks, exposed to vile indecent remarks, and on and on. "Some of the girls were so changed that they did not look like human beings."

Oh how the enemy of our soul hates us! Though it is promised that if we resist his temptations he will flee from us, there is no fleeing from the vicious hatred he is at times allowed to pour out on those willing to bear the cross of Christ.

How foolish our little grievances, yes? In the midst of the ups and downs of life, may Jesus keep His cross before us, and the joy of meeting Him, having borne it faithfully.