Sisterhood Guest Post
The following was originally written for Sisterhood (formerly Sisterhood YXE) as a part of their Steadfast: 21 Days to Reset series which ran at the beginning of COVID-19 lockdown protocols.
While it's true that our faith holds a lot of comfort for us in these uncertain days, sometimes it can feel like the encouragements we share with one another imply that we shouldn't feel any negative emotions at all. That we're almost not allowed, or they're signs of weak faith or something. But through reading some C.S. Lewis the other day, I had this comforting reminder: Jesus had some of these feelings too.
When Jesus saw hypocrisy in the temple, He raged. When Jesus lost His friend Lazarus, He wept. And when the cross loomed immediately over Him, He sought comfort in the company of His friends, and wrestled with God over the darkness that lay ahead.
In difficult times, it’s often our (good) instinct to look ahead to days without pain, anxiety, sickness, or sadness. However, sometimes I find it just as comforting to look back on the days when our God went before us and immersed Himself in a world full of these exact things. Yes, He calls us ahead to a place and time of perfection and victory. But He does so while still bearing the scars of our world.
However agonizing or unbearable our sufferings may be, none of us are alone in whatever we are going through. For one, God has given us one other within the church. But we also have a Saviour who has breathed our air, walked our dirt, and known what it was like to bear the hurricane winds of this world and stand on the precipice of difficult days ahead. As He cried out for His Father then, He listens for us to cry out to Him now.
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. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16