It was the foolish thing of my first vocal solo, for the Good Friday church service 38 years ago, which my God and Father used to bring me to the end of myself and show me how crooked my straightest straight line was compared to the straight-edge of Christ.

Good Friday is the annual holy day when Christians especially remember and meditate on the death of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem in space-time history as the perfect, sufficient sacrifice for our sins (not His) so that “whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, ESV).

Until that point, I thought participating in every available church activity and believing facts about God from the Apostles' Creed meant I was a Christian. Surely doing the Bible Study Fellowship home lessons my mom shared with me earned extra credit. To my shame, I remember one lesson specifically, on the Beatitudes, which asked me to assess myself on the various characteristics there, including meekness, purity of heart, and making peace. In my eyes I was really doing quite well, thank you very much.

Being the type-A perfectionist oldest daughter that I am, when I found out the lyrics of my song came from the account of Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane, I spent the weeks before the service immersing myself in the Gospel passages describing it. When the day of the solo arrived, stage fright overtook me and I told my mom, who was working on something in the kitchen, that I couldn't sing this and we'd just have to call the music pastor and tell him to choose someone else. Exasperated with me interrupting her, she said, "What's the name of the song again?"

"Um, 'Thy Will Be Done.'"

"Well, then, go to your room, get on your knees, and just tell God that."

I did, and the Lord opened my heart to understand the passages I'd been reading. He showed me my sin; He showed me my Savior. I trusted Him, trusted that Jesus Christ died for the forgiveness of my sins. His love swept me off my feet. By His grace, He led me that day from knowing some things about God to knowing God, or beginning to.

From that day, I began rising early to pray and read my Bible because I loved it, because I loved Him. The hymns came alive as my sung prayers. The communion liturgy expressed my unworthiness and gratitude for Christ's work on my behalf. The Lord made me hungry for Christian books and music and graciously led me to the good and Biblically faithful and protected me from the false.

I have no memory of anyone ever "sharing the gospel" with me, calling me to repent and trust Christ, or telling me of my need to be converted. My childhood church didn't do any of that, but that's another story for another time. It took several years and a change of churches before I began to have language for what had happened on that Good Friday which changed everything for me. It will take the rest of my life and then forever to understand that salvation as fully as a girl like me can. I am so grateful. So, so grateful. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

This good news is offered to you too. No illness, disability, skin color, marital status, wealth or poverty, productivity, talent or lack thereof, political party affiliation, zip code, or even ability to attend a worship service on-site disqualifies you from the free offer of salvation and a life of intimate fellowship with the Triune God. No sin is too great for God to forgive on the basis of Christ’s substitutionary death and resurrection. Our weakness becomes a platform for the display of His sufficient grace and perfect power.

This is what the Word of God says:

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world,  according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient.  We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations  of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy,  because of his great love  that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead  in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,  so that in the coming ages  he might display the immeasurable riches  of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created  in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2‬:‭1‬-‭10‬ ‭CSB‬

Those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ receive assurance:

of the unconditional love of God forever and the invitation to make our home in Him in love;

of the security of His promises that nothing and no one can snatch us from His hand or separate us from His love;

and of the significance of knowing we are made in His image, part of the body of Christ and communion of the saints, filled with His Spirit, and endowed with spiritual gifts to do the works He had designed and prepared us to do.

Even if it appears that all we can do is lie in a dark quiet room and exist, completely dependent on the care of others, we can still glorify God by turning our hearts toward Him in worship. That means pouring out our laments to Him as well as our praise and gratitude. We can glorify God by enduring with patient trust. We can glorify God by providing the gift of opportunities for the body of Christ to serve Him in serving us.

My only hope in life and death is Christ alone. In all the changes and chances of this life, He is my joy. He is my peace. He is my light. He is my Shepherd. He is truth. He is love. He is victory over death. He gives strength from day to day for all that He appoints.

He infuses me with hope that a day is coming when sorrow and suffering will flee away and I will be forever with Him in a body no longer bound by sickness and disability, no longer subject to death and dying. He gives me hope that the temporary afflictions of this life are actively producing an overwhelming and eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.

“Suffering is not for nothing,” as the late Elisabeth Elliot said. Christian suffering is, in fact, generative. It is one instrument God uses to create a beautiful forever future better than we can possibly imagine and infinitely more glorious than our suffering is agonizing.

If you know Him, too, perhaps this will take you back to the memorial stones of your own salvation? If you don't know Him and want to, I pray the Holy Spirit would use this to show you His holiness, your sin, and the sufficiency of Christ's death. I pray you would trust Jesus as your own personal Savior and embark on the journey of knowing God today.

{If you do respond to this post by trusting Jesus, please let me know by leaving a comment or DM or by replying to the email if that’s how you read?}

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