Why, in my brokenness and shame, was I alive instead of
someone who had their whole life ahead of them?
When I grapple with these questions, I find a similar voice in
the prophet Jeremiah, and his own cries to God:
Cursed be the day
on which I was born!
The day when my mother bore me,
let it not be blessed!
Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father,
“A son is born to you,”
making him very glad.
Why did I come out from the womb
to see toil and sorrow,
and spend my days in shame? (Jeremiah 20:14-15, 18)
As he learns of the devastation that will fall upon his people,
and as those very people turn against him, the prophet
Jeremiah cries to the Lord. He bares his soul. He proclaims
God as king and expresses his praise, but he also offers his pain
to God. He thrashes at God. He wails at God. He brings his
anger, his hurt, his confusion, his darkest thoughts in honest,
tearful lamentations. And even though Jeremiah himself may
not have witnessed the end of all sin during his lifetime, time
and time again, the Scripture shows us that God sustained
him, protected him, guided him.
The pain of the world doesn’t go away. The confusion
remains. There are times in which I still struggle with guilt
through every strange, surreal breath I take. But through it
all, I know the Father sees His children. He wants to take
this burden that we don’t understand, that we tear ourselves
apart with, off of our shoulders. That’s why He sent Jesus to
cleanse our sins, to turn water into wine, death into life. When
we are desperate, when we are angry, when we are confused,
God wants us to bring those questions to Him. He wants us to
bare our honest hearts to Him, to turn to Him first when we
are angry, sad, upset, distressed. He wants us to seek refuge
in Him.
about me, about others, about my life, that I still have no idea
about—the harder I cling to the God who does, so that with
confidence, I can rejoice and say to Him, I have not run away
from being your shepherd, nor have I desired the day of sickness. You know
what came out of my lips; it was before your face. (Jeremiah 17:16)
****
Why won’t this pain go away, God? If I’m saved, why does my heart
still pain me? Why am I still lonely? Why am I still depressed? Will I
ever be healed?
Depression doesn’t always go away. Loneliness, insecurity, and
the residue left by my experiences have left my heart scarred,
and over those scars are more scars. Life is still a battle. A
battle against my sin. A battle against my brokenness. A battle
against the trauma in my heart that seizes me during my
weakest moments and tells me that I’ll never be good enough,
that I’ll never change, that it might be better for me to leave
this world than be in it.
But when I stumble, when I doubt, I remember. I remember, I
remember, I remember. I remember because I am made new.
The apostle Paul declares, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no
longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in
the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself
for me. (Galatians 2:20)
****
Though we were alive, we were dead. I was dead. Though my
flesh moved, my soul was defeated, powerless to its decay. But
now, I do not live by my own power. I continue on this earth
through the power of Christ alone, the sole reason I have life
today. I was dead, and the unimaginable power of Christ’s
sacrifice, his brutal crucifixion, revived me in His goodness
when I was bankrupt of my own. And so, though I live in the
flesh, I surrender to a life powered by faith in my Savior.
The more I don’t understand—and there are so many things
11