I’m just sitting at my computer. Struggling with wanting to look at stuff I shouldn’t look at. Wanting to get just completely hammered drunk. Somehow able to stumble away from these stumbling blocks and avoid them, but just barely. I can feel the whiskey seeping in. It’s a close friend these days. The only one that seems readily available… that is as long as I have the $15 it costs to purchase this cheap friend. Listening to this Andy Gullahorn song “I Will” and feeling strangely connected to the man through his lyrics. The last verse..
The truth is we’re all gonna take a last breath
That’s not the only sad death
We are meant to feel
If you need a friend to
Do some dying with you
I will
I need a friend to do some dying with me because I can feel the ache of pain, loss, loneliness, rejection and death all the time. It’s always present. I’ve lost many loved ones. I’ve felt the pain of unfulfilled desires and dreams. I’ve been lonely and felt rejected. I can only imagine that Christ experienced this and saw it coming. He’s in the garden that last evening of freedom praying to his Father and hoping for some other way around this… He knows he’s about to be arrested. He’s about to be abandoned by his friends and rejected by the people he came to save. He’s about to die a lonely death on a Roman cross. He knows our ache more than we give him credit for.
When Lazarus died, Christ cried. This is incredible to me. He knew exactly what was going to happen and what he was capable of doing. He knew that Lazarus was just about to rise again. However, before doing that he sat in the ashes and cried with his friends. He felt the pain and loss.
This life is pain filled and Christ knows that. He knows our temptations and our weaknesses. Can we trust him? Absolutely! He knows all of the pain and ache of life more than we ever give him credit for. He is not a far off uncaring deity… He is the friend who sits in the ashes with us and cries. He holds us up and he dies with us. More than that… he died for us.
I look to the right of where I’m sitting and my Bible is laying on the desk. This strange feeling comes over me of desperation. This is all I have. This book. This Word. This little love letter from the only Love who has ever known me completely and loved me more than I will understand. I’ve spent my life reading this letter over and over. Part of me fears it’s wasted time… But there is something deeper in me that says, “No… He hears you. He sees you. There is pain in the night, but joy will come in the morning. Don’t turn away. Stay here in the silence. You’ll find Him here even now."
I sit in solitude. There is a sense of loneliness.
I mourn the ache. I loathe this sense of separation and loss.
Christ sits with me. He mourns the ache with me.
He senses my loneliness. He sits in the ashes with me
Someday there will be beauty for ashes.
Hope comes from a lack… We hope because something isn’t….
Someday it will be. Someday hope will be unnecessary because
there will be no lack.
Christ with me in the ashes.
Christ with me in the absence.
Christ with me always.
