God doesn’t mind our brooding, aching questions. This week as I continued to ponder the darkness, I felt as if I were taken by the hand, behind the curtain, into the depths of the darkness. I comprehended in a deeper way why Jesus had to become a human being, why God become a baby, went through all we must to walk and talk and learn, and suffer. Why he had to spend so much time talking with his father. He wasn’t simply God in a transformer body-disguise. He really was a man. A man with choices.
YD talks a lot with her children about making good choices. Not much of right and wrong, obedience and disobedience. Not so much the rules and no-nos. “Did you make good choices?” she will ask to elicit a heart response from the child who obviously didn’t.
Jesus grew up with choices just like we do. Since he was also God, I think he had the God-awareness that made it possible for him to grab on to his father when the choices were hard.
When his cousin John lost his head.
When he saw in the eyes of Judas his betrayal was in place. And knew all his friends would leave him.
When he cried in the garden for a way out.
It really was his choice, a man deciding, every moment, to say ‘no’ to himself and ‘yes’ to his father.
I think the biggest difference between our choices and his was that he knew what was really at stake. 
When he broke apart the bread at their Passover Seder, his last meal with his close friends, he knew the depth of our brokenness, and what that tearing would cost him.
As he offered the cup it was no polished chalice he had in mind.
It was his own blood, drop by drop, poured out on our dry and thirsty world.
The last night in the garden, he looked into the darkness. In his agony of soul, he knew he must walk there.
Dwell there.
Release his father’s hand and go alone into the pit of evil.
He chose well, but it cost him.
Oh, how it cost him.
Cut off, by his “good choice” he gave up the light of the world.
Jesus hung on the cross and the world went dark for three hours.
For the first time since he was conscious of his own life as a human being, he felt totally alone.
“My God! My God! Why have you abandoned me?”
He walked into the darkness of the sin of the world. Of the vilest and worst.
He didn’t just see it. He felt it. He “bore it upon himself.”
During those dark hours on the cross
He became sin.
The bullies at the bus stop, or in the home
The little ones abused by their father or another trusted friend or relative
The runaways trafficked for profit, purposely hooked on drugs so they have no exit
The parents losing their temper, again, this time throwing their baby across the room
All those babies, never knowing love or protection, experiencing only violence, and if they survive, becoming violence.
Alcoholics, drug addicts, food addicts, porn addicts, video game addicts, control addicts, religion addicts . . . all those who life focus is skewed and drained and draining, committing slow death and stealing life from those around them
The diseases destroying bodies or brains, and the hearts of those who love them
The slums of the world, teaming with hopelessness, one miserable wretch preying on another
All the sickness, hurt, pain, injury, violence, torment, greed, envy, jealousy, selfishness, pride, arrogance . . . and death.
Can you even imagine the weight of it?
When he cried, “It is finished!” he proclaimed the end of the power of darkness to destroy us.
Because he went into the darkness, and came out of the tomb, not one of us ever has to walk alone.
There is no place on this earth, no life too far from the presence of the risen Jesus.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost.
We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
Isaiah 53:3-6, The Message
Glimpse of Peace 
I Really needed to read these words today, Jane. Thank you for writing them, for yourself and for me.
With heart,
Dani
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I was surprised when I looked back over my blogs at how many have had to do with darkness. I would rather be sunny and comical, cheer with a good quip or just stunning photos (complements of my husband).
However, my glimpses of peace come from my heart, and even when I am not personally grieving, I continue to sense the grief or pain of others, especially those of you who have spoken so transparently here. Your words continue to speak to me, and I in turn with our Lord, lifting you up and waiting to hear, “What now, Lord?” I don’t start writing until I feel the answer. Then I write, intending my words as beams of light, even if only enough for one more step, forward.
Wishing real peace,
Jane
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Writing, as it should be, dear Jane ❤
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And now it is Sunday morning, where I am, and soon “I” will approach the tomb where He was laid, with my basket of supplies to tend to him, my tears and sorrow the cleanser, my grief my hands to tenderly lay Him to rest…and then seeing that stone rolled away, and a jovial young man shining there in the dark, glad and glorious, and so beyond my ken that I do not see who He is…
And then He opens my eyes and the scales of grief fall.
Jane, yesterday I received a letter that is the shatterer of mother’s hearts everywhere and the bloody jagged ties of relationships sundered by the rottenest vilest old decayed sword of all time…the one first unleashed between Adam and Cain…
I cannot tell you how I feel. There are no words.
But there are these words, from Hebrews 5:7-8, and they comfort me knowing His knees left the impressions that mine now rest in. Further encouraged by Hebrews 10:19-23…
You write true of the True Ones, our Papa, our Great High Priest and the Lovely Holy Spirit whom my heart cries out is Mama, She of Proverbs 8 and 9 who was there when all was created and says that it was by Her that Jesus created all things.
Our God is unlike any other god, in that They are both Infinite and everywhere, and intensely interested in each…single…one. A personal God Who knows our every fibre, and the fibre of every fibre…
I stand in awe of our Papa…who has been telling me to go easy on myself, for if all parents are judged in how I am judging myself that makes Him the biggest Monster of a Parent of all history, for everyone of His children rejected Him…all save One who is the Author and Finisher.
On this day, I water my grounds around here with my tears, and sorrow flows in rivers from my heart. Words fail me, guilt overwhelms me and the sheer unfairness of it all looms large…they never asked to have a transgender parent and thus no “father” just as I never ever ASKED to be transgender and sought to kill this for half a century in order to stay alive for others, and then to stay alive for them…and have that sacrifice of sorrow thrown into my face as such a curse and burden on them they wish I had gone ahead…alas…
…on THIS day, in THOSE circumstances, He is Risen…and I am confident that I will make my way to my tomb and find Him yet again sitting…jovial…unquenchably joyous more than all His companions, and I will again be swept away into His heart…His Sacred Heart…
So glad for you, being. So glad for every step you have walked…so fortunate to read the things you write from those many years of long nights and longer days…
…and Happy Easter. He is Risen Indeed ❤
Charissa
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Oh Charissa, so conversant with the pain of the darkness, I am sorry for the words that sought to slay you, and glad you seek the one waiting for you at the tomb. His Sacred Heart is great and tender enough for it all. And his love keeps beating into the depths of any pain or darkness, any valley we must cross, or live in. Someday, when we go to him, or He returns, all the broken pieces, the shards and twisted craziness created by our very imperfect loves, will be made whole, and holy. Because he is risen, the darkness does not own us.
Alleluia!
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Yes, yes and Amen, forever yes to God, for God, with God… Our Lamb Slain, our Risen Lion, our ever Shepherd Savior and lover of our soul
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not just like…adore
❤
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