Jesus Paid It All (And totally coincidence on the verge of Easter)

One night you might look over and realize you are staring at a stranger lying next to you, the person you have climbed into bed every night with for the last decade or so.  You are alone.  If you are an incredibly lucky or blessed person, the stranger might be your best friend whom you have shared all the intricacies of life with for years, the father or mother to your children, the person who walked through the valley with you when you discovered you couldn't have children, the one who went through that time of depression with you, the one who sees you at your finest, who sees you at your most insecure, at your most insincere, the one who sees you at your worst.  That same person wouldn't flinch if you looked him straight in the face and said he had poop breath.  He would still be there.  No matter if you were blessed enough to find that utopian partner for that utopian sanction of marriage that many strive to attain, when you reach it, when you achieve it, it's not the utopian life you dreamed it would be.  No matter how good or great your marriage is or isn't, you find that even in the deepest corners of the most holy partnership and lifelong commitment, is a loneliness, an otherness.  You are alone.  You are other than that person.  You are united as one, and hopefully the closest relationship you will ever find yourself during this lifetime, and yet you are other than.  It's a distinct moment or set of moments throughout life, where you consciously are aware of this...that this is as good as it gets, this is the one person in this life I love the most, and it's still not enough. 

Enter children.  You welcomed those bundles of joy excitedly, hesitantly, and a little skittishly into your home, into your life. You had never imagined your love, your heart, could expand so.  You didn't even know you were capable of such fierce and unwavering love.  And then that child arrived.  You would do anything to protect them, to provide for them, to love them every day of your life until you are no longer able to do so this side of eternity.  You would change their pee soaked sheets in the middle of the night, you would hold them when they were sick, you would give your very life to save theirs.  Yet, even amidst that vehement and passionate love and devotion, you find it is still not enough.  There are always cracks and crevices where want creeps in, ache creeps in, discontent creeps in, loneliness creeps in.  You are alone.  None of it is enough.  Even in the absolute best, perfect, intimate relationships we have, we realize we are strangers to each other, strangers to this world, strangers that no one really, truly, earnestly, knows. 

Enter the search.  Now we search for something, anything, someone, anyone, to fill these holes.  Something to fill the WHAT that's missing, someone to fill the void that's missing.  We hunt and we hurt and we search and we seek.  Everything falls short, leaving us worse off and wanting something more. 

Enter sin.  We will try anything, us humans.  We will try anything to replace what's missing.  We will try whatever it takes to bandage these internal, eternal wounds, to no avail.  These are wounds and wants that cannot be quenched.  And yet we..you..I will certainly try.  And that's the sneaky thing about it.  Sin can creep up on you when you are most vulnerable and impressionable and deceive you into thinking you need this, them, that, her, him.  The deceiver whispers these lies because he relishes in seeing man crumble and fail.  And now the ache in your soul from the loneliness and brokenness of this world and its sin, has just been intensified from the sin you pursued in order to put a salve on it.  It's a spiral.  A deep, dark, suck you in, sort of tunnel into apartness.  You are apart.  You are apart from the One who created you, the One who loves you, the One who knows you.  You are apart from the One who put that ache there. We tried to replace God.

BUT.

God will not be replaced.

Enter Jesus.  BUT.  There is a great BUT.  But, Jesus paid it all.  He literally paid it all.  He paid everything.  He paid His very life, He put up, shut up, and put His money where His mouth was, laying down His life for a wicked and depraved generation, all so that we might be brought to Him and show His glory to all.  If I really believe that, if I truly and honestly, not just churchy rhetoric and trite cliche Christianisms believe it, than it HAS to touch every part of my life.  It HAS to touch the aches, the ugliness, the brokenness, the loneliness, the want.  It has to touch the something more we look and long for.  If my Jesus really hung up on the cross for me, it HAS to mean something to me as I lie in bed searching for meaning.  It HAS to mean something to the person so deep in loneliness and loathing, she can't bear looking at herself in the mirror. 

There is more to this story.  There is more to this life.  We are only in the beginning and a great Hero is yet to come on the scene.  He died once and for all for us, but He didn't strand us, He is with us, and He will come back for us.  Each life is worth something to God.  Oh how He loves you.,, He loves you.  It matters.  You matter.  I matter.  This life will disappoint and people will rip you wide open sometimes, but there is One.  And He paid it all.  He gave everything for you.  He gave everything for me so that when I'm living in the daily and mundane, I still have hope amidst the search.