My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? - Psalm xxi

{God} has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say 'gone is my glory, and all that I had hoped for from the Lord' - Lamentations iii

We often say, as Christians, that we are an 'Easter people' and 'Alleluia' is our song, so reading passages like the two printed above can be rather difficult going. As a people who are constantly told to rejoice in the love of God as shown through His Son's death and resurrection, it can sometimes feel as though we should 'bottle up' our tears and our grief, our anguish and our pain.

However, as well as knowing God's love for us, we also know that Jesus Christ, while He walked the earth, endured pain and grief and torment as we do. One of the most famous verses of the New Testament, (and to me, one of the most powerful) says simply 'Jesus wept'. We can think of many occasions throughout the Gospels where Jesus showed His emotions: in the Garden of Gethsemane, as He awaited His betrayal; as He looked out over Jerusalem, contemplating what was to come; and, of course, when He hung from the Cross, and looked out over a jeering crowd, none of whom knew the significance of the moment.

God doesn't want us to bottle up our emotions, rather He wants to share in them with us. As it says in Ecclesiastes iii, there is 'a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance'. 

Our present situation is not a very pleasant one. As a result of the virus, many of us have been stopped doing the things we love, whether dancing, or football, or visiting friends, or even going to church. For some, the suffering may be even greater, as we or someone we love becomes ill from the virus. We may well feel alone, or afraid. But as we travel towards Easter, we travel alongside One who has shared in all of our sufferings, yet has shown us, through the Cross, that all this can be overcome through God's love.  

This world is not all there is: there is much more to come, and it will be simply heavenly!

A hymn that I would invite you to use as a prayer:

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
that in Thine ocean depths its flow
may richer, fuller be. 

O joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace a rainbow through the rain,
and feel the promise is not vain,
that morn shall tearless be. 

Amen

Hymn written by George Matheson (1842 - 1906)

Michael RJ Topple