GT Easter Blog Good Friday

This post originally appeared on the GT Easter Blog                                                        True confessions: I’m not much of a crier. In fact I’ve been known from time to time to say incredibly comforting things like, “are you seriously crying??” when someone bursts into tears at a time I’m not expecting it.  I’m working on this.  I’m also the self- appointed president and founder of the “Justice League”.  I want justice to be done for all the evils of this world and I want them done now. So I really don’t watch the news because 1. I rarely see justice,  and  2. I’m not much of a crier, and I’d like to keep it that way.  So imagine my horrible surprise when I was innocently reading my daily devotion sent conveniently to my inbox in the comfort of my living room and there it was... Twenty-one beheaded Christians. Child rape. Human trafficking. All the things I’ve been trying to avoid, wrapped up in one devotion.  It was a shock to my system and I literally felt sick.  I just couldn’t handle it.  This momma’s heart just couldn’t handle all the evil as I thought of my own children and the world they and we now live in.  So with my ever-present tendency to “go big or go home”, I didn’t just cry, I wept.   And as I wept, the only words I could utter were, “Lord, it’s too much”.  Yet, while I sat weeping in my living room on that beautifully sunny morning I could hear His still small voice say “I know it’s too much.  But I came for the too much.  And I had victory over all that was and is too much!”  How amazing. The cross was too much.  Too much blood.  Too much abuse.  Too much love.  Just as all the evil that surrounds us is at times too much to handle or imagine, the love of God is too much for me to wrap my brain around.  Jesus says in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world.” We can’t avoid the trouble, but we can run to The One who can handle it.  And so I run.  I run to the foot of the cross in prayer and suddenly I’m not overwhelmed with the evils of this world anymore. I ‘m overwhelmed with the love of the cross.  That love tells me I am more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37), that I was not given a spirit of fear (2Tim 1:7), and that one day there will be justice when every knee bows and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ as Lord (Phil 2:10-11).  And I have peace. Don’t miss the peace waiting for you at the foot of the cross.  Run.  He’s waiting there to overwhelm you with His love.  And maybe you’ll cry a little, or maybe you’ll weep.  And maybe this self- proclaimed “non-crier” will be weeping for joy right there next to you.