Alone: A Reoccurring Theme These Days

The feeling of abandonment is at the root of many complaints against God about the evil of the world. Why do you put up with injustice and oppression?  Have you just left us alone?  The prophet Habakkuk called out many years ago:

"How long, O LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or
cry out to you, 'Violence!'
but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds" (Habakkuk 1:2-3).

The life of our beautiful friend, Donna, is absolutely spiritually inspirational every time Bettyann and I have opportunity to visit with her in her parents home.  Donna is in her fiftieth decade presently.  However, what, at birth could have been a time of great joy at birth was immediately overshadowed by the news that she had Hydrocephalus.  The medical community pronounced she had six hours to live, then six day, then six months.  At one appointment her specialist promulgated his estimation of six year.  She began school and graduated high school. Began writing hymns that; as she told me:  “just come into my head.” Her entire life she has required a great deal of medical care traveling some seventy miles to receive medical attention.  Her loving parents have kept her at home for these many years, providing the care, attention and prayer for her healing.  She witnessed to me that she has never been alone.  Most of her youthful life here father worked, sometimes a thousand miles from the house, always travelling back and forth several hours to be of help to his wife, and all his children.  Donna’s mother hardly has left her side. I have personal witnessed Donna and her entire family’s inability to understand the spiritual, emotional and physical suffering, as she experienced one painful procedure after another, unable to understand the 'what' or the 'why' of her pain, her parents have loved her, made tough decisions, and prayed for her life. All the time by her side. Sadly, now, when her father and mother, in their eighties, ought to be enjoying a fruitful time of retirement and easier way of life, are struggling with various aspects of physical aging issues.  Thankfully, Donna’s siblings are up to the challenge of being presesupporting, caring and loving on Donna, Mother and Father.

In the face of tragedies like this one, I want to cry out against God for not fixing things, or at least to call out and demand answers—why? But this experience has reminded me again of one of the beautiful truths of Christian faith: that although I do not understand the 'what' or the 'why' of all of my pain, I am not left alone either. My God is like a father watching over his child, like a mother longing for my healing and bearing my pain as if it were her own. My God does not abandon me to my fate, but has come along side me, to be close and intimate enough to experience the very depths of my condition.

It remains costly for God to be with me in this way, just as it was and is costly for my friends to be so close to the pain of Donna. But my thought this mornings is: when I love deeply, I want to be with the beloved, whatever the cost. And since I live in pain, brokenness and sin, God's coming along side me means descending into the depths of that pain, brokenness and sin. Now, like Donna, I find assurance in that I am never alone, that even when I do not understand the suffering in my life, I do not bear it by myself. And even though my friends are unable to heal their child, my God promises ultimate healing and resurrection to them, me and all my family, friends, colleagues, and to anyone in the world who will receive it. I’m thinking of the angels announcing, Jesus's birth is good news of great joy for all people.

The manger and eventually the cross are the supreme reminders of God's involvement and intimacy. When I turn to cry out in abandonment to God, I find myself face to face with a tortured, bloody man on a cross, in whose death I am an accomplice. Before I can even utter the words, I hear him cry them first: "My God, My God why have you forsaken me?" I am further thinking that while I have rarely ever know the answer to this question—'why?'—the very fact that Jesus asked it is meaningful. It was not about information. Jesus knew more about the reasons for his suffering than I ever will. Information does not take away the pain anyway. However, if I believe that God has truly come to me in the person of Jesus Christ, then Jesus's anguished cry tells me something far important about God. Jesus's cry tells me that even in feelings of ultimate abandonment, I am not alone. And you are not alone.  I’m encouraged today and my desire for you to be also.  My hope is that you will see the gospel message—that God has come among us—is absolutely transformative. There is no longer any place where God is not because this God has gone with you and me all the way. Even in the deepest moment of abandonment, we meet the one who is called “God With Us.”