Suffering But Not Alone

The Church of the Flagellation in the Old City of Jerusalem (Photo Credit: Mike Harding)

Almost twenty years ago, I sat at my dining room table and said to my husband, “How can I trust God when I look like this?” I had quit my job the year before to start a ministry called NorthStar Women’s Network and found myself in that moment battling for my faith. God had been telling me, “The battle’s going to be tough,” but I thought I was tougher. I was both so wrong and so weak. My bowel had perforated twice. I had six surgeries, spent thirty-eight days in the hospital over eight months, and suffered significant weight loss.

In a battle between life and death, I used Scripture as a sword to slay the enemy’s attempt to make me doubt the Lord’s faithfulness. I got up from the table, went to the living room, and laid down on the sofa, crying out to God saying, “Father, You said You will never fail me or forsake me. Please help me.”

I can only imagine the battle Jesus was in when He, too, cried out to God with, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? — My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45-46). When Jesus uttered these four words, He was repeating the beginning of Psalm 22, a psalm that foretold the bitterness of the cup Jesus was to drink. He would be scorned and mocked by those who would encircle the cross and they would cast lots for His clothing. He would endure His bones being out of joint, shriveled hands and feet, and His mouth being so dry His tongue would stick to His jaw.

For years, I have understood that God turned his back on Jesus, abandoning Him as hung on the cross. To forsake can mean to abandon, but in Matthew 27, it means to abandon to a place or a condition. It wasn’t necessarily that God left Him, but God left Him in that condition, upon the cross, bearing the sins of the world.

Yet even though Jesus was allowed to suffer, He wasn’t alone in His suffering. In fact, it was Jesus Himself who stated this truth when He told His disciples, “The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each one to his home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me” (John 16:32). Although the Father wasn’t going to remove Jesus from that place, He wasn’t going to leave Him alone in that place. The psalmist agreed as he reminded us in Psalm 22 that “…he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from him, but heard when he cried to him.”

In his deity, Jesus understood why He made the decision to sacrifice His life, but in His humanity, He felt the physical pain of that decision. In our moments of suffering, we too, like Jesus, often have questions of why, how, where, or what. Why have You forsaken me? How can I trust You? Where are You? What is going on? It is never wrong to ask our questions of God. They may sound like questions of doubt, but in reality, they are questions inviting God to enter our pain and reveal His presence.

Although my husband heard me question God’s trustworthiness, what he didn’t hear were the two words God said in response, “Andrea Felts.” Andrea was the nurse who came into my room the night I went back to the ER due to severe complications. When she entered, it wasn’t her southern accent calling me darlin’ or her blonde side-ponytail that reminded of the actress Suzanne Sommers that caught my attention, but it was the big button on her lapel that said, “Trust in the Lord.” When the Lord brought her to mind, He was reminding me of this verse I knew from memory. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). God was right there with me, responding to my request for help. I wasn’t alone in my suffering, and it was no different for Jesus.

So, it makes me wonder. When Jesus repeated the beginning of Psalm 22, was He also reminded of the later verses and holding God to His promise that “He would not hide His face from him, but would hear when he cried to him”? All that was heard at the foot of the cross were His words crying out to God. What they didn’t hear were possibly God’s thoughts in response; because what we know for sure is He wasn’t alone. The Father was with Him.

As we finish our journey this Lenten Season and approach the cross with Jesus, let us remember that although Jesus was allowed to suffer, He wasn’t alone in His suffering, and neither are we. Jesus came to model life with the Father, and the best place for us to start is with this truth we find at the foot of the cross.

For God does not hide His face from us, but hears us when we cry out to Him.
Praise be to God our Father. May we continue to glorify His name.