a lament // inspired by John 20

As I was thinking one afternoon about John 20, this lament poured itself out. I’ve been going through an unfamiliar struggle in my life, and sometimes I find myself asking God, “How long?” I used to think that it was wrong to cry out in this way. Then I realized that so many of the psalms are outpourings of a heavy heart. Jesus said to come to Him with our burdens, our weary souls, and He will give us rest. So this is my heart cry, my lament.

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Sometimes it feels like all around me are Mary Magdalene’s who hear one word and believe the dead are living. And then there’s me, sitting in a room behind a shut door, not seeing, and not believing.

Won’t You reach and take my hand and put it in Yours, put my finger in Your side, lift my head to look in Your eyes and make me believe in a resurrection?

Sometimes three hopeless days can be dragged into three weeks, three years, a lifetime because I’m sitting and grieving the hope I once had that’s now dead and buried in a tomb.

Won’t You reach and take my hand and put it in Yours, put my finger in Your side, lift my head to look in Your eyes and make me believe in a resurrection?

I guess something has to be dead first to live a second time, and even though Lazarus was dead You weren’t done with him. So maybe my life is a grain of wheat that has to fall and die before it produces a hundredfold.

Help my unbelief, increase my faith! Make me know, even when it doesn’t feel true, that You are the Resurrection and the Life.

Reach your hand and place it in Mine, put Your finger in My scarred side. Look at Me, the One who takes ashes and makes them beautiful. Look at Me, believe Me, I’m alive.

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“…that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection…”