Jesus Chose To Carry The Pain

A time to cry and a time to laugh.  A time to grieve and a time to dance.--Ecclesiastes 3:40.

The day I found out Sanna needed treatment for her third bout with cancer--this time, a tumor in her brain--my heart felt like lead.  It was the day before Thanksgiving, but I hardly felt thankful.  In my laundry room, as the machine's basin filled with water and I flung dirty clothes into it, hot tears stung my cheeks.  I was furious that diseases like cancer are permitted to wreck bodies and lives.  I felt hatred as toward an enemy but wasn't sure to whom I should direct it.
     Suddenly a thought pierced my anger.  It was a still voice, saying, Diane, I am sick to death of it too.  An image of Jesus, hanging on a cross, flashed before my mind.  It was Jesus, literally sick to death of sin and death and grief and evil.  On the cross he absorbed it all.
     Although my hatred of the enemy remained, I had a sense it was shared.  Jesus felt it himself, a thousandfold and more.  ...Jesus says, "I'm sick to death of it, too, but remember the ending of the story.  It will not always be this way."
     Christ absorbed sin and death--then he conquered it.  Death could not hold him.  Now he scorns both death and the enemy who causes it.  The enemy can wound us, but he has no claim on us if we believe that the blood of Jesus was shed for our sins.  In this, there is hope.  Wild hope.  Glorious hope.
     I find comfort in these thoughts, even though I still feel the pain keenly.  God grieves over this broken world.   But he waits because he is working out good things too.  Someday God will shake things down and sort things out and make everything all right...
     As I wait for God's long, grand plan to play out to the end of history, I now know where to take my grief and anger and pain.  I take it to the One who shares it, absorbs it, and gives back peace, hope, and a certainty that all will be well.  In that certainty lies the mysterious gift of faith.
--Diane Eble
From Abundant Gifts

And through your faith, God is protecting you by his power until you receive this salvation, which is ready to be revealed on the last day for all to see. 
So be truly glad.  There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while.  These trials will show that your faith is genuine.  It is being tested  as fire tests and purifies gold--though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.  So when your faith remains stroung through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.  --I Peter 1:5-7