No Greater Love

Wow! What a heavy week this has turned out to be.  So much pain and suffering in such bold print across our nation these last few days.  As I have tried to shake the heaviness of it all, I am continually reminded of Christ and His love for us.

Until this year, when I thought of Jesus' prayer that the cup be passed from Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, I thought that He was dreading the physical pain of crucifixion.  It makes me sad, and a bit embarrassed, that it's taken me thirty-one years to realize that this wasn't it at all.  On the cross He took on the sins of the world- for all of time and mankind.  Christ who never sinned.  It's a story I've grown up hearing, but when I take a minute to really sit and think about what that looks like, I am overwhelmed.

My heart hurts this week for the suffering of those I both know and don't know.  Every life effected by tragedy is important.  Every instance of pain is personal.  And each and every one of us can relate to loss on some level.  When I seek to put myself in someone else's hurting shoes, I cannot help but feel a heaviness.

The heaviness I feel this week pales in comparison to what Christ felt on the cross.  The ramifications of sin are so much greater than any suffering we do on earth, and yet a blameless man, that knew what life without sin and its consequences was like, chose to take that weight for ME.

So, although my heart hurts both for and with the hurting this week, I am overwhelmed by the love of someone I've never met.

A savior that knows my pain and has prepared a path of peace and comfort.

A love that transforms everything I do, say, and feel.

"But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

-Romans 8:37-39-