I am still suffering from Chemo Sores in my mouth (day 9), and I know I have another 3-4 days before they are completely gone. Just when I am about to have another (I have had a few) pity party, I remember my young friend that suffers from childhood arthritis. She is in pain every day. I think about two other women in my life that suffer from pain every day. Thanks to the amazing writings of Max Lucado, I am also reminded that Jesus can completely understand my physical pain, because he endured even worse to pay for my sins.
Sometimes we have to let the tears flow, because holding it in can be harmful to our health. But, then we need to find our strength once again and be amazed by the truth that our God is not a far away being, but a God who knows heartache and pain. Through Jesus being on earth, our Savior can completely relate to all kinds of pain. Thinking on this truth makes me feel like I am not so alone.
By Max Lucado:
When a bookstore owner told me a woman had stomped into his shop, angry, slamming one of my books on the counter, I knew exactly what he was talking about. I wrote that Jesus may have had pimples. He may have had bony knees. But I said, “One thing’s for sure, he was, while completely divine, completely human.”
There’s something safe about a God who never had calluses. There’s something majestic about a God who never scraped his elbow. But there’s also something cold about a God who cannot relate to what you and I feel.
Rejection? He felt it. Temptation? He knew it. Loneliness? He experienced it. Death? He tasted it. And stress? He could write a best-selling book about it.
Why did he do it? One reason. So that when you hurt, you’ll go to him and let him heal you!
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4:15.”
From In the Eye of the Storm by Max Lucado
