The Piercing Cry
It’s been two weeks since the surgery, so I’m back at work full-time now.
One of the hardest things about the recovery has been not being able to hold Micah. I can hug him carefully, but I cannot carry him, because I am not supposed to lift anything heavier than 5 kg for the first six weeks.
One evening, he was very upset because he couldn’t eat his apples AND ride his bike (mean mommy does not let him eat anywhere but at his high chair). He cried like there was no tomorrow, no apples, no bikes in the world left to enjoy. Worst of all, he reached out for me in his sobs, clinging to my neck, begging me to pick him up, but I couldn’t.
My heart broke as I tried to explain, “Mommy’s stomach hurts. I want to hold you, but I can’t.” He tried to climb onto me, but I had to pull away and ask my dad to take him. That was so very difficult, not being able to comfort my child when he wanted me.
It made me think about the agony of the cross. Not just for Jesus, who was in unimaginable pain, but for the Father, when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” As the angels pleaded for the Father to commission them to go and rescue their beloved Lord, the Father, with a broken heart, had to hold them back. He knew what had to be done.
During the two days when Jesus was in the grave, the Father still had to constrain His omnipotent hand and His anxious heart. He had to wait for that morning when Jesus Himself would break the bonds of death and rise, triumphant.
While the disciples hung their heads in sorrow, the Father dispatched angels to share the good news. But they were too absorbed in their own heartaches to grasp the magnitude of the truth – Jesus was alive!
And so He waited for them to accept, believe, and delight in that revelation. Jesus Himself appeared among them, discoursed alongside them, and ascended amidst them.
And so He waits for us, still. While we feel forsaken in our short-sighted disappointments, while we wallow in our self-pity, God holds back in agony for what has to be done. It may feel like an eternity of silence, but He has a timeline for the end of pain. A day is coming when He will gather us in His arms and at last we’ll understand His piercing cry, “It is finished!”
“You number my wanderings;
Put my tears in Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book?”
Psalm 56:8, NIV
by: Jinha Kim
"But those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:14