Suffering Jesus

 The last piece of writing on my blog was almost 6 months ago. I never intended to go this long without posting.

I have so many things to share, so many moments of profoundly God in my recovery as well as many moments of pain, suffering, joy, grief and hope. 

One thing I really would love to touch on is probably the biggest thing that has happend for me. Somthing that has helped to shift somthing in my core. Somthing that has left me closer to who God created me to be, kind compassionate, able to choose to love others and to be loved.

Which is to embrace a suffering Jesus.

So much of Jesus's ministry he suffered and something I've found hard especially when it comes to Sunday church is how we so only focus on the victorious Jesus, the Jesus who overcame death and is all wonderful and glorious which don't get me wrong I so believe.

If the old testament spends so much time pointing to Jesus, and Jesus suffered greatly and deeply then why do we as modern day Christians miss the whole suffering part except for the cross (don't get me wrong it's big and important) and just spent our time in the resurrection Sunday?

Is it because our own suffering is too painful so it's easier to just be positive? Just fix our eyes on the resurrection and live victorious? 

What do you do when you have done all that and your still suffering? 

How for me as someone who's suffered deeply in my life relate to all that?

I don't relate to just being victorious. I've brought that bag, t-shirt, shop and city it was made in.

But I fully relate to Jesus who suffered. Suffered for doing right, suffered for being counterculture, suffered for no clear reason at all (other then being the Son of God) 

He suffered for me, not just for my sins but I believe suffered and chooses to suffer (whether you believe it or not, he did have a choice) so I wouldn't need to be alone in my suffering.

Romans 5:3-5 showed up in a whole new meaning for me recently "not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit,who has been given to us'

For me, to see purpose in my suffering helps, but there's alot I would never ever ask to go through. However, knowing that through suffering I will find hope has become a source of hope in itself. 

I had a situation recently where I almost stepped in front of a train, and that came about because I found myself facing the very thing that has driven my 25years of wanting to die.

Hopelessness.

Hopelessness tells me that there is absolutely no way of things ever being good, or worth fighting for. Hopelessness is this big lie that I've spent my life living out of. This filter that has tainted everything I've lived through, for good reason.

So realizing this means I've been able to search for ways to cultivate hope in my own life. 

And that's weirdly(or not so weirdly) been through suffering, and ultimately through my suffering Jesus. He holds my hope in his body being broken but also in stories where he wept with Mary and Martha as they mourned for Lazarus, even though Jesus was on his way to heal Lazarus and bring him back from the dead. That right there tells me that Suffering Jesus values and embraced the pain and suffering of others, as well as he was able to be brave to embrace his own pain and suffering.

I'm not a theologian, but I am someone who so much wants to do life with Jesus that I'm not about to dishonor him by jumping to resurrection Sunday. There's a time and place and for me, where I am in my recovery and in life, the suffering Jesus gives me the most hope. 

Because I know as I embrace the brokenness in me, God's glory can truly shine bright, like a torch seeping through cracks and windows in the pitch black of the dark.

Just like Jesus's brokenness shines bright for us all to see. For us all to find comfort in. 

Bless you friend.