And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,He bled and died to take away my sin.
But I keep coming back to "You allowed my children to die."
I believe the truth of the Bible. I have seen redemption and provision and lovingkindness in my life. I have seen God move powerfully in myself and the people around me. I do not doubt that God exists and that He is active and sovereign in our world. I believe He is a good God who does not change and works miracles even today.
But He let my children die.
So I've been struggling with how to reconcile these things. To me, they are mutually exclusive. I've been going round and round in circles on this and then lay it aside for a while, trusting there's a good answer somewhere.
And then during worship at church last night, we sang the wonderful old hymn "How Great Thou Art." When we got to the verse I quoted above, my question was answered. Not with the answer I wanted, but an answer nonetheless: I let my Son die too.
Yes, I've heard it before, and read it before, but it never sank in until last night. I was raised in Christianity and the idea of Jesus going to the cross to die has been a concept that I have really taken for granted up until now. After all, He was God, right? It somehow didn't seem to me that it would be that hard because He was divine, the Son of God. Then I read The Shack recently and the concept of Jesus being fully human and fully divine was blown wide open for me. He was fully human, just as we are and beloved by God because of the perfect, intimate, nature of their relationship.
And He let Him die, too. I can relate to that.
Maybe I need a new concept of what death means. As a human, just before His execution, Jesus agonized over the death He was going to face. Not because of the torturous way he was going to die, but because of the separation from His Father He would have to endure. Maybe there is a thing worse than death. Maybe it's living separate from God.
2 comments:
So beautifully put. I always cry at the story of Jesus's death when I think of his mother, Mary, following him on his carrying of the cross. I see his suffering through her, especially now as a mother. It must have been tremendously difficult to watch her son die in such a horrific way all the while knowing it was God's plan. It is very similar to what I am sure you are going though. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
I was raised in a christian home as well and have really had a hard time with the fact that God let my son die......it was only after his death that I really realized the gift that God gave us, I WOULD NOT have allowed my son to die for "strangers" who hated me.And yet that is what God did he gave his only son so that one day wee might be with hin abd have our babies back!!!
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