The Dark Side

I must have looked at some unsolved crime story on Facebook. All of a sudden my feed started filling with stories of missing persons and horrible crimes, and at first I was sucked into reading them! A good mystery has always intrigued me! But the more I read, the more I became sickened by the horrendous things that people do!!! And I know that what is reported is a censored version of what really happened!! And I could not bear to read any more - and I shut those sites down.

I only read the tiniest sample of the horrors that some people perpetrate on each other!!! Deep inside us, we know this dark side of humanity exists, even though we choose not to look at it because it is so deeply disturbing, and we want to live a beautiful life!!

But something spoke to me this morning of what Jesus endured for us, to bring us back that beautiful life we yearn for. It wasn't just the "little" sins that Jesus died for - although he did take all of those! But every single horrendous act done - each one that makes my stomach turn! Every awful thought and act through history! Jesus took all of it upon himself in that incredible act of self-sacrifice!!!

He wore it all!!! The kindest, most innocent life that ever lived, took our darkest, most shameful horrors on himself - all at once, as he hung there to destroy evil's hold on us!! Just imagine the overwhelming torment that would have been - that gut sickening feeling multiplied by every life and act ever lived!! How he held on through it I'll never know. But it killed him!! That trauma broke his heart and his mind!!! He died before they physically expected him to!! Because the psychological darkness was so intense!!

So often we downplay what he did. He held on to bring us freedom!! I hope we recognise it's cost. He broke himself for us. To give us back "abundant life".

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