Alone

Have you been truly alone? Not only physically, but spiritually and emotionally? Have you felt the deep despairing feeling of total abandonment by everyone, even those who profess to love you?

Thank God I haven't... but Jesus Christ did. I'm reading "The Path of His Passion" by Bill Crowder and for the first time, the weight and true scale of what Jesus had to suffer for me has hit me. It's not just his time on the cross... its before that too.

In the Garden where He prayed, everyone was abandoning Him. This sentence in the book explains it best:

"His family had turned from Him (Mark 3.21), the crowds had walked away (John 6:66), the Twelve had become Eleven, the Eleven were reduced to Three -- and they were asleep."

Asleep? On the final hours of Christ's life on Earth, they chose to SLEEP? As much as I would like to point fingers, I can't. Because u know what, I probably would have done the exact same thing. How foolish, undependable and hurtful can we be?

When Christ died, He was alone... His disciples had fled and denied Him. His Father in Heaven had turned from Him... how painful the agony He had to go through.

This hymn is quoted in the book:

"It was alone the Savior prayed
In dark Gethsemane;
Alone He drained the bitter cup
And suffered there for me.
Alone, alone, He bore it all alone;
He gave Himself to save His own,
He suffered, bled and died alone, alone."