Sometimes in my life, when things seem to be at an all time low, when the proverbial quoting of Murphy’s Law does not even seem to convey how I feel, at times like these I feel far away. Do you ever feel far away? Have the feeling that the poet in Footprints conveys when he looks back over his life and, at times, sees the signs of only a single traveler. Maybe feeling the way that Job felt, you know at that small moment in time, just before he questioned the Lord. Maybe right now you feel like a lone traveler, walking a dark and dreary road on a moonless night.
At times like these we often wonder if anyone knows how we feel. Maybe it is that you have lost your job, are on the verge of loosing your home and are at a time where you feel so out of control that you lash out at everyone around you. You may be sitting in your car, returning from another failed interview and just feel like swearing, cursing and yelling at God while you hit the roof and kick your feet in a fit of despair. Maybe you are reading this after lying in your bed, with your head buried in your pillow so no one could hear the screams and cry’s, the pillow wet to the core with the stains of your sorrowful tears.
I know this feeling. I think we have all been there at some time or another, stuck with this feeling of aloneness. There is no worse place to be as a human than to be alone. It is in our nature to seek out relationships and surround ourselves with people. Just look at the extent people go to in order to get others to accept them into their circles. Sometimes though, we can be in a crowded room of our closest friends and still have that dreadful feeling of aloneness.
It is at times like these that I like to remember the story of a man who, in my own humble opinion, must have experienced the most dreadful feeling of abandonment and aloneness in the world. I think of the pain he must have endured, much more than any physical pain suffered by any man, at the moment where he felt so utterly alone and cut off from all that he knew, loved and counted on. A moment that was so powerful, that it has been recorded for all eternity. The cry ,“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” to be echoed through the halls of time. This cry. The cry of our savior at a time where He felt so alone that these words blared out. They blared out from a tortured soul and battered body, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
This is the man who walked daily with the Spirit. A man, who by his very conception, was a miracle, a person so in touch with God that he astonished even the most learned of his time as a boy. This man of devotion, prayer and service who willingly walked in to the hands of his persecutors and torturers, and faithfully laid his life down on the cross for those who did not even have the courage to admit to being his followers. The Son of God, at that moment in time, felt so far away that he cried out. Not only did he cry out, but he begged his Father for an answer. An answer as to why he was so alone.
When I think of this I realize that I am not alone. Christ has been here. He has experienced far worse than I could even begin to imagine. He knows my pains. He knows my sorrows. He has promised to be there for me. Yes he has promised to be there even until the end of the age. He will never leave me, nor forsake me. He loves me, knows me, and yes, he knows where I am and how I feel, for he has been there before me.
No, I am not alone and God is not far away. I am reminded that when it is dark and difficult to see around me. When I am in the midst of the chaos and fog of uncertainty, it is times like these where even the things closest to us seem far away. And when in the fog, when I feel most alone, all that is required of me is to raise my voice. For while darkness and fog, storms and rain may blur the vision and trick the eyes, there is nothing it can do to silence the words of my praise, prayer and adoration. The important part is that after the cry for help is spoken. After the praise and adoration are echoed. Sit still... Be silent... Listen intently... For the still small voice that reigns from the Heavens will be there. Train your ears and know. Know that God will answer, He will deliver, and He will overcome. For just as Christ was not truly forsaken, neither are you.
God is here; he has always been here and he will always be here. And just as the poet is told at then end of his poem, when he was so focused on what was happening to himself, when he saw only the single set of footprints in the sand, when he was so self centered that he failed to realize that it was Gods footprints and not his own in the sand. Where he saw one traveler... there were really two. When he saw only hopelessness and darkness there was really hope and light. Where he saw only pain and sorrow, there was truly healing and joy. It was only that the one, himself, was so tired and so weary from his troubled journey that the other, the stronger, carried him.
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