It is hard for me to write right now. I am in a lot of pain. I started my wave today. Every part of my body is in pain, to include my brain. I read somewhere that the brain can’t feel pain…correction…trust me, the brain can feel pain. It is an odd feeling and gives me anguish! I am in a place where I have a lot of symptoms, and everything is out of control. My body is working hard to recover, and it is taking everything out of me. I am tired and overwhelmed. When the pain is severe, I walk around the house looking for ways to cope- I worship, read the Bible, tend to my kids and chickens, walk, do laundry, blog, get lots of hugs, love, and support from my husband. I just keep moving around trying to buy time until I can go to sleep. It is very difficult just doing life. I can’t tell you how many times I have prayed for Jesus to take me home, but He hasn’t answered my prayer. I wonder if this is in part because my husband is praying that I stay here and just endure- ha! I guess his prayers are trumping mine right now! He wants me by his side. I love him and want to be by his side, but I still pray for release from this difficult affliction. Specifically, I have asked the Lord to, “Heal me like Lazarus, empower me like David or take me home like Elijah”…right now, I would take door number 1 or 3.
This affliction has made me think a lot about the suffering Jesus had to endure on the cross…suffering He bore so that I wouldn’t have to suffer eternally. I can barely suffer for four months. I can’t even imagine an eternity. I know with my circumstance, there’s true hope for recovery, but once we leave this world, our eternity is sure and fixed. That’s a powerful thought to me right now, considering how difficult my day to day is.
We read that in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus, “began to be grieved and distressed.” (Matthew 26:37) while Mark 14:33 says that Jesus “began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy.” In the book “The Cross He Bore,” we read that Mark, “makes use of a word in the original which implies a sudden horrifying alarm at a terrific object…something approached Him which threatened to rend His nerves, and the sight of it to freeze the blood in His veins.” The feast is over. The sacrifice it symbolized is imminent. The language used in the original is vivid and forceful. It indicates torment of the soul, a state of intense anguish. “My soul,” he said, “is very sorrowful even to death.” This is no ordinary distress. No man had ever experienced such distress before, and no one would ever do so again.”
Jesus was acutely aware of the suffering He was about to endure and this brought deep anguish to His being. He knew and understood that He would have to drink the full cup of God’s wrath. His suffering truly began in the garden and continued to the cross.
It is Jesus’s own personal understanding of suffering that we must cling to and find hope in as we face our own. He is acquainted with both the anguish that comes from knowing what we will endure and the personal experience of suffering Himself. Jesus own suffering allows Him to care for and join us in our own sorrow. Psalm 56:8 reads, “You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book?”
Suffering is hard. It takes all our energy and holds us captive. It changes the way we do things and see the world. Sadly, because of sin, this world is full of suffering. We push back against suffering every time it enters our life yet we ignore these earthly warnings of what is to come.
In Jesus alone is forgiveness of sin. His death on the cross guarantees our freedom in eternity. His life was given so we can be freed from the penalty that awaits us because of our sin. He bore it all so we don’t have to.
I struggle every day. I am thankful that there is an earthly end to my pain and suffering. One day, my body will be whole again, Lord willing, but I know that even if it isn’t here, because of Jesus, it will one day be whole and free. The suffering of Jesus pardoned me eternally. He is truly a man of sorrows. By His wounds, I have been healed.
If you are a sinner, Jesus came to free you of your sin. Check out www.NeedGod.com for a great gospel message on forgiveness through Jesus Christ.