Pain Worse than Death

I have felt a lot of pain over the last several years. The pain of giving birth, of gallstones, and of kidney stones (yeah, I know, there must be a joke there somewhere, but I can't seem to find it). I have also suffered pain that cuts deeper than any surgeons tool can reach...the pain brought on by losing a loved one. In each moment of pain, I can remember thinking things like, "Nothing could hurt worse than this" or "I just can't get through... it hurts too much". And inevitably God would get me through it and eventually show me that there are worse types of pain.

It has now been just over 9 months since I lost my mom to cancer, and that pain is still present, still aching and tugging at me. Just after she went to be with the LORD, I thought, "Surely there is nothing more painful than losing someone close to you to such an awful disease." Well, I was wrong. There is a pain that exists in this world that has the ability to go far deeper than that of loss through death. It is the pain of sin. Sin can damage the very depths of your soul, whether it is your own sin or that of someone you love. It can paralyze you, unable to move forward or backward. If it is your own sin it can poison every part of your person, creating other sins along the way, like a disease of the soul. If it is the sin of another it can bring about a grief that cannot be matched or "out done" except by One.

As I have begun to feel this strange and yet familiar pain, I have seen the destruction and agony in the lives of others as well. I have seen what it is to look on a person who is suffering the pain of another's choices. It is an ugly pain. A heavy pain. The pain of an ungodly act causing a godly pain. I cannot begin to describe this awful suffering, and yet I know that it is minuscule compared to that which Our Savior suffered for us. If one sin can hurt so deeply, how much more so the sins of the world. The pain He endured for us is unfathomable. It is more than any of us would be able to handle, and that is why it had to be Him. It could only be Christ who bore that unspeakably heavy burden. I am so grateful He did, and so humbled that He loved me enough to endure such pain for each one of my agony inducing sins.

''Father,

Thank You. I am so overwhelmed at what You have done for me. To send Your Son, knowing what He would experience and how deeply He would suffer. All so that people like me, who can and do cause such great suffering, might have life. If it were me I would have said forget it and let those pain-inflictors suffer their own fates. Yet, another reason I am so thankful that You are in control and not me. Thank You for loving me so deeply that You would give so much for me. I am humbled, and honored to be Yours."