I’m going to save this weeks ‘update’ for the monthly email, but I do want to share about how Christ has really spoken to me with the scripture of Jesus’s prayer in the place, the garden, called Gethsemane. \u00a0It seems fitting to share this with you now as we draw closer to Easter.<\/p>\n
In the month of December, as we neared Christmas and were celebrating the holiday season; I have to admit that at the beginning of December, I was pretty much done with all of your Christmas cheer. \u00a0I don’t mean to say that in a rude way, and I hope I wasn’t rude to any of you; but I was hurting. \u00a0I didn’t want to celebrate and I really wanted to avoid the whole season. \u00a0Now, I know that Christ knows our pain and suffering; we all know<\/em> this and understand it; in our minds at least. \u00a0But God took me to Jesus’s prayer and I was compelled to look at in in all the gospels; in Mark 14:36, Matthew 26:38-44 and Luke 22:42-44. \u00a0How I ended up in this scripture, I really don’t know; but it was a morning of reading, praying, casting (hucking and throwing) and when I came to this passage in Matthew; it was like the Father said ‘stop here, I want to tell you something’.<\/p>\n I’ve read these words many times; but on this morning it really struck me how personal, how intimate Jesus prayed. \u00a0‘Abba, Father, \u00a0If you are willing, take this cup from me; Everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me’. \u00a0Jesus was in pain, he hurt, he was in agony, he was overwhelmed with sorrow; do you think even emotionally devastated? \u00a0I can hear him praying ‘Dad, isn’t there another way? I want you to succeed and your goal to be accomplished, but does it have to be like this?’ \u00a0On this day as I was reading these scriptures and feeling my own pain, hurt and sorrow – NOTHING compared to what Jesus was going through, but big enough for me in my little world – it became so very real to me how intimately he knows my pain, my hurt, my sadness and grief. I no longer just knew<\/em> it, in my mind; but I felt<\/em> it in my heart. It was like he was sitting right there with me saying ‘I know how you feel, it does hurt, it sucks, but it’s going to be okay. \u00a0Keep reading’.<\/p>\n