taking up the cross?

In one of my classes we had to write a paper about who Jesus is. As I was reading the textbooks and my classmate’s papers, I noticed there is much talk of discipleship requiring us to take up our crosses and to take up this mantle of self-sacrificing servanthood. In reflecting on this most recently, it has occurred to me that this seems to presuppose a lack of suffering before taking up the cross. If the call to discipleship means taking this up, we must not have already been carrying it. However, Jesus does not say these things to the people out of whom he casts out demons or to the sick that he heals. He tells them to proclaim what God has done for them, or to go their way and sin no more, etc. He speaks it while teaching, he speaks it to the rich, he speaks it to those who ask about it, but the healing is a different matter. Is that because these people already carry crosses, have already been crucified by their infirmities? They have already been sacrificed on the altar of social and religious norms and paradigms, broken by the weight of these burdens. Is there a message in this for today? Should we consider that some are already so broken by life that preaching a call for discipleship like this is not good news, but infirmity upon infirmity? They need to be healed first, and discipleship can follow.