# a cross to bear

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/a-cross-to-bear
Updated: 2026-07-29

## Meaning

A heavy, ongoing personal burden or difficulty that one must carry.

## Examples

- His bad knee is a cross to bear, but he never complains.
- Caring for an ageing parent alone was her cross to bear for many years.
- Every family has its cross to bear, and theirs was a chronic illness that reshaped every plan, every holiday, and every quiet ambition they had once allowed themselves.

## Origin

The phrase draws on Jesus' words about the cost of following him, in Matthew 16:24 and Luke 14:27: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." To first-century listeners the image was brutally literal — the condemned were made to carry the crossbeam of their own execution to the place of death. Taking up one's cross therefore meant accepting suffering and self-sacrifice deliberately, as the price of a chosen path. It later merged in the popular imagination with Jesus carrying his own cross to Golgotha. Softened over centuries, the phrase now means any heavy, long-running burden a person has to carry — a chronic illness, a difficult relative, a private grief. To call something your cross to bear is to acknowledge a weight that is yours to endure, whether you chose it or not.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.