Good Friday

At church on Sunday one of our worship leaders asked us to think about a time when we had to go in for a procedure that we were dreading.  She asked us to remember what we were feeling in anticipation.  She then asked us to consider what Christ might have been experiencing as he anticipated and faced the events of  Easter.  This was powerful for me.  Immediately when she asked us the question a few things came to mind.  There have been a few procedures in my days that I have dreaded... injections in my rib joints, the latest toenail removal (good gracious that nerve block is a killer).  But there was one that I dreaded more than the others...not physically, but emotionally.

After we lost our baby Joy I had to have surgery to have her body removed from mine.  I wasn't nervous to actually go through the surgery and we all knew it was what had to happen, but it was hard knowing simply that it would separate me from her physically for the rest of this earthly life.  There was little physical pain involved, but it was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Today is Good Friday.  And on that day God experienced the same thing that I did.  He experienced the death of His child and the separation that resulted.  With a few incredible differences.  God did this willingly. Not only was He willing, but it was of His own plan and design.  He was willing to bear the incredible pain of separation from His own child (from part of His very self) in order to rescue us.  He was willing to endure the separation from His son to be with us.

I don't know how He did it.  I don't know that kind of selflessness.  I can't imagine having to make that choice.  And yet I owe everything to that act of love and today I am feeling humbled by it.

Please watch this video and consider, on this holy weekend, that kind of love that He has for you.