“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from who people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem. Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on Him. And by His wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:3-5.
When I think of my personal freedom, I think of these verses and what it cost Jesus to provide that freedom for me. It hasn’t always been this way in my faith journey. For many years I took it for granted. It was easy to say “Jesus died for my sins” as an 8-yr old; not fully knowing at that age what it really cost Him. But once I started doing my emotional healing work, and started working through my abuse recovery as an adult, it all became so clear to me. It was an identity marker with Jesus that I didn’t want or ask for, but that led me to even closer intimacy with the Savior.
“We can only feel another’s pain if we feel our own”, Celestia G. Tracy says, “Christ suffered the most excruciating physical, emotional, and spiritual torture to deliver us from the curse of sin. Jesus understands the horrors of abuse. He was publicly mocked, stripped naked, slapped, whipped, spit on, shamed, and eventually tortured to death. Christ isn’t indifferent to our suffering. He experienced that suffering for us—with us—and promises to redeem every bit of our pain.” He truly is God with us, Emmanuel.
Over the years, as I’ve done the work necessary to understand what constitutes abuse, and have identified my primary (major) losses and secondary (consequential) losses, I’ve realized that Jesus has not only been with me, but He identifies with me. Like me, He experienced the misunderstanding of who He was. He experienced His accusers not asking the right questions or believing the answers He gave. He endured the shame of someone else’s sin. There were sufferings and losses that He and His Father chose for our good. But there were secondary or consequential losses in these choices that Jesus didn’t choose--the beatings and physical abuse, the loneliness, the misunderstandings, the abandonment, the humiliation, and shame. Yet He kept entrusting Himself to the Father, just as I had to learn to do.
Jesus not only loves and cares for me, He not only died for me, but He IDENTIFIES with me and with my hurts and losses. What a truth this is for me! And it has brought tremendous comfort. That the God of the universe has walked through the same pain and relates to mine! As I walked through the losses of life, I struggled to understand His love for me until I really understood His identification with me in the losses I carried. It was His hard but beautiful way of wooing me closer to Him.
“Lord, ……I have learned your unseen law of recurrences, and through it, to pursue freedom. There’s intimacy on the other side.” Celestia G. Tracy
If you are looking for a safe place to process your past losses or abuses, I encourage you to visit www.irvingbible.org/supportgroups for a listing of classes that will be kicking off in the fall.