Familiar with grief....

"He was a man of sorrow, familiar with grief..." (Isaiah 53:3)

I am not sure why, but I have been thinking about these words a lot lately.

You know how something can become so familiar that you hardly even notice it's there anymore? Like an old pair of jeans, it feels so much like a part of you. Until one day you put on a different pair and you go, "Whoa, this is different!"

Each night I drift to sleep hearing the familiar voices of rejection and judgement. Each day I wake to that familiar ache of emptiness and loneliness. Like that old pair of jeans, grief has become something I am so familiar with....

Then, something remarkable slowly began to happen. For the first time in my life, I felt as though I was...getting to know Jesus. I feel like I am beginning to understand what it was like for him to be betrayed by those whom he trusted and loved, to be condemned, judged and rejected. To be a man who is, like Isaiah says, familar with grief.

I find that I no longer look to Jesus for "healing" or "deliverance" or to pray and ask for the any number of things I used to preach about. Instead, I found myself looking up this morning, saying (praying?!). "It must have been so hard for you..."