In my darkest night. My 5 year old son’s life in the balance. Helicopter, wires, needles, tubes, confused doctors, nurses scrambling, monitors screaming, and absolutely nothing I could do to change the situation. I was completely broken, desperate and everything around me was out of place. Nothing was right. Day after day. Hour after hour… For months. My faith was shaking. My strength was gone. God’s love for me, for my family, for my son was on trial. I could not make sense of the darkness we found ourselves in.
There were moments I wanted to leave my faith behind. The faith that saved me didn’t feel like enough to get me through. The promise, “I’ll do anything for you God. I’ll go anywhere. My life for the gospel,” was painful to remember. How could a loving God lead us to this place? Lead our sweet boy to this place? I could not see a way to hold both this pain and my faith together. His lack of healing and believing in His goodness were at war in my mind. But He held these things in perfect balance. He kept me. Pulled me so very close. He would not let me go. On the longest days and nights; in the most painful moments of death-filled reports. The Holy Spirit kept whispering to me, “Look to the cross. Look to the cross. I love you. I love him. I am here.” Oh the grace in those whispers.
As I remember the cross on this Good Friday, I am taken back to this disorienting space. He has used His cross to save me again and again. Unto salvation:Himself and through trial. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13
In the cross is where I see God’s love poured out through His suffering and death that although I may experience it here, I will rise again from it. The wrath of the Father was satisfied by Jesus. His blood flowed so that one day our tears would not have to. He cried out to the Father to make a way for us to cry out in our darkest moments to the creator of the universe. In His death on the cross, he made Himself so very close. So very available. Without this act if sacrifice, reconciliation with God is impossible. but nothing shall be impossible with Him.
I will never get over it.
Imagining Him on the criss, the pain and agony He suffered, held me in that hospital room day after day. In my bed alone at night. In my car driving to and from Pittsburgh day after day after day. In the darkness of my own thoughts. When I saw the cross, all I could see was His love.
The cross teaches me that no matter what circumstances look like, He loves me and all of us more than we ever could imagine. Our difficult situations do not determine His great love. When He said it was finished and ”breathed His last” He said my son’s suffering is finished. My pain is finished. This grief is done. The work of sin, death and struggle in this world is beaten… eternally. His humble sacrifice changed everything. He is the eternal victor and us in Him.
Heavenly Father,
We praise you for finishing the work of conquering darkness, death and disease forever Lord. We thank you! Please help us walk through the messy middle until you come again. Help us through Saturday Lord. Carry us through the loss, fear, evil, pain as only you can. Keep us close when we want to run and hide. Keep us remembering what you did that day. You changed everything. Now we can see, we can breath, we can hope, we can live. In Jesus name, Amen.
Cheering You On Always,
“For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2
