I’m going to deviate a bit from what I’ve been posting to share that is has been a tough week. There is so much pain happening in the lives of so many that I love. In some situations ongoing pain has reached a fever pitch. In other circumstances buried sin has been brought into the light and the collateral hurt is incredible. And on and on it goes. This pain is invading the lives of people who love the Lord. Honestly, it sucks that we can love and strive to follow Jesus and still fall into incredible, deep, distressing sin that hurts the sinner and devastates those touched by that sin choice. But it happens. I’ve been encouraged in my heart this week to think on those stories of scripture that open closets full of skeletons so that we can see. There is conniving Sarah who thought to push the plan of God by giving her handmaiden to Abraham to beget a child. We all know how well that plan worked! And yet, in the final analysis, God’s plan did come to fruit in the birth of a child to Abraham and Sarah from whom came the lineage of Christ. And then there’s that adulterer and murderer David. Really, as I read his story, there are times I’m so angry at him that I want to hire a hit man (always a good, Godly reaction)! But then, as he repents and seeks God once again God calls David a man after his own heart. My reaction to these graces of God ranges from ‘how could you God, think of all they hurt’ to ‘praise you Lord for amazing grace and that your purposes stand no matter how we muck up’ to ‘there’s grace enough for me’!

All that has gone on this week within the periphery of my personal world has shown me that which took Christ to the cross. All the pain, loss, sin, death that invades our lives was heaped upon Him. He took every bit of it to the cross and in the all-time greatest miracle he left that junk in the grave and rose to a new and eternal life. This week reminds me that if I have strength to lift my eyes even the slightest bit when I’m pressed under the muck of my own or someone else’s sin there is hope. There is Christ. There is resurrection in the footsteps of Jesus.

FOR YOU HAVE DONE IT

Birth begins death
Death births resurrection
Life anew
Life renewed
Death waits
Stalking or pouncing
Announced or rudely crashing

Should I not always sense
The valley of the shadow
For surely I walk in it every day
And yet Your rise from sealed stone
Overcomes dread
I will be dead but I will live
Life will be the final thing

Loss surrounds
Death abounds
Life will rise
Death to life to life to death
To life
Even nature cycles through
As if to prove

Spring rises in me
Life, yes, and heart
Of gratitude that death
Doesn’t end it
You’ve died to overcome
That I might live pain and joy
Following You into life

A prayer for life
When death overwhelms
Loss, pain, sorrow crush
Energy drained
Courage, please
To wait the upward lift
Tenaciously holding to You

For You have done it