“Each heart knows its own bitterness, and no one else can share its joy.”
Other than Jesus. I once wrote an article for a ministry magazine about the experience of loneliness. How deeply it can get in our soul and the gnawing grief it can produce. In the article I shared how scripture shows us that Jesus can relate to those moments. The challenge I was given to consider was that even when abandoned by His disciples and everyone else at the very least He always had His father. However for a moment while hanging on the cross when He became sin for us even His Father turned His back on Him. There He hung between heaven and earth, alone. In paying the price for our sin His Father had to turn from Him. In that moment in time, space and eternity God the Father somehow turned from God the Son, the Trinity fractured. He cried out, “My God, my God why have you abandoned me!” I have no understanding of that moment. It seems amazing not that dead rose from graves that day but that the entire universe did not explode. All this is to say Jesus understands the most intense pain and suffering, as well as joy, you will ever experience. He gets it. He tells us “I know how you feel” and He really does. And somehow He is there for us with open, consoling, healing, compassionate arms. And peace, a peace that we cannot even understand. Today find your comfort in Him.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses…” Hebrews 4:15a NIV
