I love the book of Isaiah. It's the one book of the Old Testament that I think clearly tells of God's plan for the world. You can see clearly in it how much God loves us, and how even in difficult times, even when we're being disciplined, there is still hope. In chapter 53, Isaiah writes:

My servant grew up in the Lord's presence like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry and sterile ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to Him. He was despised and rejected--a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on Him and looked the other way when He went by. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses He carried; it was our sorrows that weighed Him down. And we thought His troubles were a punishment from God for His own sins! But He was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed! (Isaiah 53:2-5)

I just noticed something there. As it says "He was whipped and were healed", there is a direct correlation between the two events. As He was being whipped, we were being healed. I never thought of that--I assumed that the healing didn't begin until after His resurrection, but this seems to make clear that the healing started before that. And another thought had occurred. We discussed in Sunday School the past few weeks about how well God knows us--He knows us so well, and still chose to take on all our griefs...not just our sins, but our weakness, and anxieties, and depression,....the list goes on and on! How awesome is our God, and we will never be able to completely comprehend what He has done for us.
One of my favorite contemporary Christian hymns is "Above All", particularly the chorus:

Crucified, laid behind a stone/you lived to die/ rejected and alone/like a rose, trampled on the ground/you took the fall/and thought of me above all.

I love the comparison of Christ to a rose that has been crumpled up and tossed aside, because that's exactly what happened. May I never forget what He has done for me.