We often claim that there is no one who understands what we are going through, that we often feel so very alone because we seem to often face trials that just seem too dark or difficult, tests that often bring out the very tears we try to hide from others so they can continue pretending that we are doing just fine and no one needs to take time out of their day to try and cheer us up. We live in a time of great pretenders, ourselves included.
I know that I have played the part of being okay, and putting on such a believable act that no one even suspected that something was wrong with me. I often think of the night that I turned nineteen. A good friend of mine that I worked with at the local grocery store passed away. She was involved in an ATV accident and her body had floated downstream. Several of us split up and started looking with such frantic desperation, every nerve within us hoping and praying that this sweet, loving young woman to be alive and well, just bruised.
We searched for what seemed like the entire night, when my flashlight beam crossed a foot, my heart dropped. We saw her lying in the stream, not moving. When we splashed our way over, we saw the head injury that had killed this beautiful, loving child of God. We pulled her out of the water and I embraced her in a tight hug and started to weep tears of pain, anguish, sorrow that I had never known before.
After she was taken away and I headed back to the gathered group of friends, I could not speak. Everyone wanted to know the same thing, was she alright? Where was she? I finally muttered that she was dead. One girl called me a liar, and that it couldn't be true. When I started to cry again, they all knew the truth. We headed to the Hospital to see her parents.
When her parents finally arrived, they asked who was the one that found their daughter? Two names were spoken in a whisper, one belonging to me. As they approached me I realized with the most sickening, violent twist of my stomach that I was the last person to ever give their daughter a hug, the last one to show my love for her.
I remember that night as if it was last night, and I tell you that story because it was a night I had felt truly and utterly alone. I had no idea at the time that someone was there with me, holding me, giving me strength to endure something that would have bought Titans to their knees, and I selfishly thought no one else was feeling. I am of course speaking of our Savior.
We have all heard the saying, walk a mile in someone else's shoes before judging them, but have we ever stopped to think that someone has done exactly that? Hardly. Christ has done so much more then walk a mile in our shoes, he felt everything that we would feel. He witnessed, participated in and even helped us in every painful, trying moment of our lives. When he was arrested and taken to prison, he walked in my shoes. When he was beaten to the point that his flesh was gone and he didn't have the strength to even stand, he stood up for you and the emotional turmoil you have felt in your life.
When he knelt to pray in Gethsemane and he bled freely from every pore on his body, he bled for every sin you and I will ever commit in our mortal lives. Christ has done so much more then just walk a mile in our shoes, he has carried us across countries time and again. He holds us when we feel alone and forgotten. He wipes away the tears we hide from everyone else, he rejoices when we choose to do the right thing, and he cries when we sin. How selfish of us not to notice him in our lives, especially when he is carrying our burdens for us.
The next time you start to feel alone or defeated, I encourage you to seek Christ, and I know that you will find him, waiting with his arms open wide, just to embrace you and let you feel his love for you, and then I doubt you will ever truly feel alone again.
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