Vivid reminder

I was feeling a little moody last night, not because of post Christmas blues, but because my daughter will be going away to be with her dad for a week. Add some self pity to the mix, some circumstance-related stress, and soon my anxiety cupboard was wide open. To combat my "woe is me" attitude, I began to pray.

I turned on my shuffle to listen to the Messiah and came across the chorus based on these verses:

Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:

The chastisement of our peace was upon him.

I opened my Bible to the Isaiah 53 and read these words, Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

I am ashamed of the times when I question God's love. But I thank God that He reminded my poor soul that forgets so easily. The reminder wasn't a warm fuzzy, Hallmark moment but a vivid reminder of the death of Christ on the cross.

I wasn't just a morally neutral person who needed to be saved from potential badness. Sin didn't happen to me. Sin was my initial state before God, and the wrath of God was coming. Not a mean, tyrant of a God intent on inflicting pain on those who would be good if given half the chance, but a righteous God who had every right to condemn the whole lot of us for shaking our fists in His face in defiance of His holiness.

I deserved that wrath but for this:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

[B]ut God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

What doubt would dare raise it's head against this? I repent in dust and ashes.

What a demonstration of the love of God!