Suffering

I've been wrestling quite a bit over the last few months with some questions. Some questions that I've always known the answer to intellectually, but that have became very different and more personal now.

"Why won't God heal me?" "Why is this horrible thing going on for so long?" "How am I supposed to keep going on in this condition?"

I do not know medically speaking what is going on with my body. I do know spiritually though.

I know that this world that we live in is fallen and that we all are in desperate need of a Savior. We all have this horrible, excruciating, painful disease called sin. It effects our lives every day. It is so much more than any one of our personal decisions to tell a lie, or forgetting to say a bedtime prayer, but it is a condition that we are that is tearing our lives apart. It's a state of being, a power or force, that separates us from a holy, perfect, powerful God. My body is suffering through physical pain because it is effected by sin. It is a fallen body. It will never be complete until I go to be with Jesus in Heaven. I feel the pain, and the ugliness of it everyday. It is overwhelming and gruesome. You may not feel it in your body physically, but we all are effected by it. It is the reason why families fall apart, it is the reason why babies and children starve to death, it is the reason why I never can seem to get it just right, and it is the reason why our loved ones grow old and no longer remember our names. It's the reason why we keep having arguments with our children and spouses, it's the reason why we can't seem to conquer "that" temptation. It's cancer, it's broken hearts, and it's anemic teenagers who struggle with their self-worth. It's horrible. It's not just this little petty thing that we can "try hard enough," and overcome on our own. It is humanly impossible to conquer.

I think in the last few months, I am beginning to feel to a different degree how strong sin is. How terrible the weight of it is. There have been many moments where I have thought this suffering was going to be the physical and spiritual death of me. And it's because of sin. It's because my body has a disease called sin.

This week while I was at camp, something clicked with me. Something huge.

I saw a picture similar to this on a big screen.

I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I just stared at every mark on his body. I stared at the crowns forced into his head. I stared at the flesh that is stripped violently from every part of his body. I stared at his swollen eyes and the nails in his hands. It hit me like a ton of bricks that THIS is how horrible sin is. Jesus took the wrath of our sin physically on HIS body so that WE could be forgiven and healed of our horrible disease called sin. This isn't a game. It's not a contest. We are hopeless and pitiful without this God who came in the form of a human and endured horrible things. I can't pretend to fully understand it all. I wish it didn't have to be the way it is. I wish it wasn't necessary for Jesus to endure what He did, just as I wish we didn't have to endure the things we do. But I'm not God, and I can't possibly fully comprehend things the way He does.

And in that moment, I was grateful for the physical reminder of pain in my body that sin is excruciating. I can't escape from it.

I need help. I need a Savior. And I have one. His name is Jesus.