Psalm 22

"My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?"

I urge you to go read all of Psalm 22 as it portrays great suffering, the feeling of being abandoned and a prayer that some of us have prayed over as trusting the deliverance God will give you can be hard when you're in such difficult seasons. It's known to be a prophecy of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. So that, we have the truth that this human life is not the end.

Yesterday was a hard Sunday. Our church commissioned a team to go forth and plant another church. I found myself in tears the majority of the time and wept with someone who was the first one at my home church to tell me, "You should come back and try out Thursday evenings with us. I'll be there and so will enter name. So, there's no need to feel alone." That Thursday came and I was not going to go. I remember it very vividly. However, the Holy Spirit pushed me one step further and urged me to take a step. One step into that church and my life changed.

I continued, obviously, to keep in contact with this person and their family. They were the first one I told my testimony to, the first one in the church I told I was going to go through brain surgery, reached out for prayer, prayed for them, etc. I watched as this person, who sometimes was exhausted, but preached three services and stayed to lay their hands on other people and pray for them. Be in community, be servant-hearted, make time, speak truth in love for others all while preparing for whatever they faced that week and going home to a family. I found tremendous strength, endurance, passion, and Christ be ultimately the center of their life. It's a beautiful sight.

The reason I chose Psalm 22 was because they said something to me yesterday that really stuck with me and I had no idea. They remembered that they preached Psalm 22 that Thursday night I walked in and, ironically, I didn't sit alone. And they said, "If I've learned anything, I've learned how to suffer well from you." For someone to bear witness and say they've learned something from me when I've looked up to them in so many different ways for who they are in Christ. We are brothers and sisters. We all learn from each other, regardless of age or where we find ourselves in life. It's the first time in my life a peer told me that they've learned from me. I think we need to do that more often. It shifts how we view each other. Not in a hierarchy or a system where one person is above another dependent on the role they take in a church or in leadership. But as a family. We lean, we learn, we observe, we listen, we love.