Not in the least

How do you reconcile the idea of a God who is all powerful, who is merciful, who is loving with what we experienced? Years of massive confusion, years of verbal abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse? How are we to come to the point of being okay in the presence of this God, aware of Him as God, while also so very aware of our wounds?

I have no other answer than the one I ran headlong into — the cross. It looms for me still, and I am sure God points to it on purpose. Why? What does this wood with its blood stain and agony-etched edges have to say to me, to us?

Everything. It says everything. It says enough. I am stopped in my complaining. I am stopped in my shouting out. I am stopped by Him who hung on it. I can see Him, in my mind’s eye. I can hear Him. I know he thought of me as he cried out to the Father, “Why have you abandoned me?” And somehow we both know — Jesus and me (and you) — we are not in the least abandoned by God. We have been abandoned by this world, by what we want to insist it be. In this moment, we let slip through our fingers all the “it isn’t fair,” all the “this shouldn’t be,” this “why did this happen to me?” Like grains of sand, they slip from finger to ground, and our trial is whether or not we will stoop to pick them up again.

If we do, if we go to the ground to scrounge and reach, to mouth these questions again, we will remain without answers. We will remain without peace. We will remain … without.

If, however, for this time being, we refrain from bending down, if we consent to just stand here with Him together, pondering this Cross, we will no longer be without. We will find in that space between our bodies and that Cross such substance, such heft as to be nearly indescribable.

Reflection

In what ways has the Cross impacted your life?

Standing before it in prayer, what does its presence say to your wounds, your anger, your view of God?

Prayer

Dear God, I’ve been told the Cross is a sign of my own guilt and sin. It is what Jesus suffered and died upon because I am so bad. But, this isn’t the point, is it? The Cross means so much more. It is your response to my suffering, to all of our suffering. It was then and it remains, powerful, a sign of victory in and of itself. Draw me in, God. Help me to understand. Help me to know my wounds belong beneath your Cross. Amen.

“Through his punishment we are made whole; by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)