If I Could Just See Your Face

How great the pain of searing loss? How great the pain of betreyal - those who said, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you."(NIV, Matthew 26:35) Even these would flee - even Peter, who swore he would not leave - even he was conquered by fear.

How heartbreaking to hear these words, and know for an absolute truth that they were only human, that they would not stand by You when the time came.

It blows my mind that this is what they said to the Son of God, and then they deserted Him. Immediately after this, He goes to pray at Gethsemane - but first He says to the disciples, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death..."(NIV, Matthew 26:38) He prays to the point of sweating blood - He asks His Father to take this cup from Him. But, He also prays that God's will be done - not His own. Jesus knows what is to come, and yet He submits to His Father.

Jesus went through every sin - He became every sin; He experienced it all. I know I have yet to understand the depth of the hell Jesus went through. When I think of every sin I've committed, and think of Jesus undergoing that all at one time, I am daunted. Then, to imagine the sins of every person that ever was or will be resting on Him, all at the same time.

I do not understand. I do not comprehend.

Maybe I never will.

But, to know that, at the very least, Jesus took on all my sin at once - takes on my daily, hourly sins - that, in itself, is amazing. I, as a human who shrinks from anything relatively

Who else would care? Who else could even care?

I praise You, Jesus, because You would not run - even though those closest to You, Your beloved disciples, turned their backs, You would not do the same to me. I praise You, thank You, worship You. I give you my life as a living sacrifice, though I fall day after day. I give you my puny faith, my feeble prayers, all of my failings, joys, talents, dreams, my future, my shambles of a heart, everything I dare call my "own".

It's all I can do to reciprocate the gift that cannot be repaid, that can never be out-given or out-ranked.

~Fumble