I received an invitation... to suffer

I was talking with my roommate, Steph, the other day about how Jesus knows us fully and completely all the days of our life, but we are constantly learning more about who He is. We are fully known, but we are never fully knowing. We are constantly learning new characteristics of God, gaining new perspectives on Jesus' life on earth, and being led by the Holy Spirit into unknown territory. I have been transparent about the ways last year was extremely painful for me. It was so hard experiencing constant rejection and choosing to trust that the Father has good plans for me despite nothing changing about my circumstances. During that period of time, God showed me who He is as the comforter. He became a deep companion in the midst of feeling misunderstood and rejected over and over and over again.

That period of time taught me a lot about the character of God, the Father, but recently I feel like I have been introduced to Jesus Christ, the Savior, the friend, the Son of God, the man who endured earthly suffering. It’s easy to say we know what Jesus is like and what he went through based on what we read about, but when you finally experience the magnitude of what his love and grace feels like, it is often overwhelming and incomprehensible. A few weeks ago, where we did a 3-day fast as a Church. During one of the worship nights, my sweet friend, Renee, told me that she had a picture of me trying to force a door shut, but it was impossible to close. Then she saw Jesus, with the holes on his wrists, help me close the door. She explained that Jesus was inviting me to suffer and I am going to get a glimpse of His sacrifice by partnering with him through this season of suffering. While this last year, I needed God to comfort me and shape my perceptions of Him in the midst of my confusion, I feel like this is a different experience where God is giving me the choice to suffer, so that I can look at Jesus with an new awe, wonder and reverence I didn't have prior.

To be completely transparent, I don’t think anyone wants to receive an invitation in the mail saying, “You're invited... to suffer.” While this invitation is daunting, it's giving me the chance to see a fuller picture of Jesus. During this Holy Week as we wait to celebrate Easter, several ladies and I from the church did some imaginative prayer exercises where we listened to Scripture of the events leading up to the cross and imagined ourselves there. We pictured the scene with our five senses, and imagined what we would say to Jesus in various moments.

We even spent one night painting while we hear the Scriptures and let our sense of creativity spark intimacy with the Lord. (Disclaimer, art is not my forte, but it was powerful to worship in this way nonetheless.) I personally chose to focus on the image of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane before being taken on trial and then crucified. In Luke 22:42-44 it describes Jesus saying, "He knelt down and began to pray, 42 saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” 43 Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony, He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground."Jesus experienced so much agony and stress thinking about the cross that he sweat BLOOD. While Jesus trusted his life into the Father's hands, it didn't take away from the mental, physical, and emotional battle of submitting to a plan that was scary, torturous, and lead to his death.

Sometimes God leads us somewhere we don't want to go, and it can be an overwhelming process, but if the goal is to know more of who Jesus is in the end, then shouldn't it be considered a gift? Romans 5:3-5 says, "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." We can find joy when we suffer, because it is shaping us to look more like Jesus. He experienced the pain of loneliness, trauma, and the treacherous fate of something that’s about to happen that he wished so desperately God would change. Yet, he still chose to die so we could spend eternity in heaven, where our pain will be comforted and our tears will subside forever.

As we sat this week in this imaginative prayer session, we pictured ourselves at the last supper and asked Jesus what he would say to us and what we would want to say to him as our final words before his death. In this moment, I pictured Jesus and I both saying to each other, "I love you." This exchange of "I love you" feels like a moment before you say goodbye to someone you won't see for a long time. In my invitation to suffer, I believe Jesus is showing me the depravity of his loneliness and the ways he was devastated to leave his friends on earth in the same way I recently moved to Thailand and had to say goodbye without a reunion in sight. Jesus knows what it is like to say goodbye and miss people. As I live in this new country without the ability to hug my family, hold my niece and nephews, or be together with my friends, I see how Jesus felt as he approached this separation from the disciples, his family, and from us. As we await Jesus' will return and we no longer have to face the darkness of this world, but how beautiful is it that God himself allows us to experience suffering so we can know more of his character and more of his deep love for us. While I experience a loneliness I’ve never felt before, a desire for companionship that dwells in the deepest parts of my soul, and the longing to physically touch my friends and family, I am now aware of how Jesus feels this longing towards me. He desires to hug me and is also waiting for the day He will return.

Thank you, God, for sending your Son to suffer. See you in heaven.