Just for You, Pt. 2

My dad is one of the most important people in my life, and it would be hard to give you all the reasons why within the small confines of this blog, but I assure you, there are a great many reasons for it.

My dad has always been a teacher. Although he has probably never been aware of that fact, he has taught me many valuable lessons throughout the years simply through every-day discussions.

One lesson I will never forget. I was sitting by the seat of his throne (what us peasants like to call 'the recliner') when my dad said something so amazing and so extraordinary, I still remember it years later. It wasn't meant to be anything more than a conversation between a father and his daughter, but from it I gleaned a new perspective on God I wouldn't trade for the purest gold you could offer.

He was recounting to me the grief-filled days of his youth, when, at the young age of thirty, my mom and him began trying for a child. I listened attentively, sitting cross-legged on the floor. It was just my dad and I, the TV muted for the moment so that we could talk. Listen, if you will- and hear, if you can-my dad's voice as he began, soft and sure...

Adam
Adam was the first child my parents lost. It was a devastating miscarriage, something doctors assured my parents couldn't have been helped, and urged them to try again. Although they never technically knew the gender of their first baby, my dad says he just knew in his heart. It was a boy, and his name was Adam.

"It seems strange," my dad told me that day, "But I knew him. I knew him in my heart. For some reason, I think he had red hair, like your mom."

Adam's death was painful, but my parents decided to heed the doctor's advice and try again, only to have two more attempts end in miscarriage.

Shannon and Christopher
Shannon and Christopher were the only babies my mom carried full-term. In August of 1984, it appeared that my parent's dreams were finally being realized. Shannon was delivered by C-section, and my dad still grows nauseous at the thought.

"There's just something wrong about seeing your wife's stomach laid open like that," he told me as I sat on the floor.

Just minutes after being born, Shannon was taken away. The only moment my mom had with her was a brief second when the nurses wheeled her away on a cart. My mom got the chance to touch her foot, her fingertips connecting with her daughter's soft heel before she was pushed out of reach. She would never have the opportunity to touch Shannon again.

Shannon died-my parents would later find out-due to a genetic abnormality that affected her heart.

Christopher followed a mere thirteen months later. An almost identical experience occurred; Christopher died just a few hours after being born following open heart surgery.

Grave Experience
The depression my dad sank into is indescribable. Five babies, all within the course of four years. The death of just one child could bring a man to his knees. How could any one man be expected to endure five? Such were my dad's thoughts.

He had been such a newly born again Christian when he and my mom had started trying for a child. His faith had now been tested to its limits. He was broken, angry, and hopeless. He and Robin were never going to have a child. They had tried five times, without success. Losing children was not like losing basketball games; the stakes were much higher and much more painful.

God, I don't understand, my dad cried out in prayer one day at the grave site of his babies. Why would you do this? Where is the justice in this? Robin doesn't deserve this. She wants to be a mom so badly.

God replied in the most remarkable and unthinkable way to my dad that day: Terry, one day you will say that you would do it all again to be where you will end up.

Do it all again? My dad responded angrily, looking at the burial plot made for his two children. Why would I ever want to do this all again?

It would take more than a year for my dad to get his answer.

Adoption
In September, 1986, my parents' sorrow finally turned into joy at the adoption of my older sister, Alicia. It had been exactly thirteen months between the deaths of Christopher and Shannon, and it was exactly thirteen months later when they got the call to come and pick up Alicia.

I was adopted in 1991, and my little sister Rachel in 1995. "I can still see Alicia's face when she saw you for the first time. You were always our little snuggle bug," my dad commented, smiling lovingly down at me.

At last, my parent's wounds had begun to heal. Where once they thought they would forever remain childless, they now had a home full of giggling girls. Where once their hearts had seemed to be forever emptied of love-even for each other-those very same hearts had been filled to overflowing.

God had been faithful after all.

Grave Return
Many, many years later, my dad found himself back at Shannon and Christopher's graves near the anniversary of their deaths. The pain was still there- real, and fresh. But amidst the pain, amidst the tears and memories, something new was there... something my dad couldn't quite put his finger on at first.

Suddenly, a memory came to him. A memory about demanding God to give him a reason why, and how the Almighty had responded. And suddenly, he knew. That something new? It was a grateful heart.

My dad bowed his head in a humbled, thankful gesture as only a man who's been through hell and back could. With tears rolling down his cheeks he whispered, "You were right... it was worth it. I would do it all again. Thank you, Lord. Thank you."

Just for You
My dad stopped in his narrative, looked down at me, and said with a voice husky but resolute, "I'd go through it all again just to have you."

Thunderstruck, I stared at my dad in disbelief. What was he saying? He'd go through the nightmarish horror of having five of his own biological children die, for me? He couldn't mean it.

But as I looked at him, searching his eyes for the truth, the truth stared back at me. He would absolutely go through it all a second time.

I was so incredibly touched, and yet, I felt ashamed and unworthy of such love. What kind of person in their right mind would want to experience that kind of suffering not just once, but twice? How could I be worth all that pain, all that sorrow? In my mind, nothing could be worth that, especially me.

He would actually choose me over his own biological children, over the chance to never have to experience those deaths, over Adam, and Christopher, and Shannon? Looking into his face, I knew he would.

I wanted to cry looking at the tenderness in his eyes and the love in his face. My dad-my dad, would go through it all again, just for me.

I thought nothing in all the world could beat that, but then I remembered someone else who said, "For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life." (Isaiah 43:3-4, NIV)

My dad wasn't the only one who would choose me over others. God would choose me over entire countries! And the similarities didn't end there.

Adam
Adam was God's first beloved human son. The kind of intimacy Adam and God shared was incredible. Who can say they have talked and walked with God on a daily basis down here on earth? And yet, that was exactly the privilege Adam was given.

But then one day Adam chose to disobey God, and by so doing, committed the very first sin in the history of the world. God is holy, which means he is completely incapable of sinning. Since Adam sinned, the two were now at odds against each other. Once the best of friends, they could be nothing more than enemies now.

You might think that would be the end of it. You know, God kills Adam with his master lightening-throwing skills, or takes the quickest cloud outta there to heaven to get as far away as possible. True, he did remove Adam from the office of head gardener and demand him to relocate, but that's a whole lot better than just annihilating him on the spot.

What some people miss is the pain God must have felt at being separated from Adam. Adam had been created because God wanted to be with him. His sinning was as painful for God as it was for him. Through Adam's sin, we know death came into the world. As it says in Romans 5: "When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned."

Adam died a spiritual death the day he chose to disobey God, and created a spiritual heritage of sinful men (and women) for any who came after him. I don't think it would be any exaggeration to say that God must have felt the death of Adam as acutely as my dad felt the death of his first son.

Many More Deaths

Adam was only the first casualty of a war that would now spread throughout all nations, tribes, and times. As the earth and its' inhabitants increased, so did its' sin.

"The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time." (Genesis 6:5, NIV)

And there cannot be sin without a spiritual death-an eternal separation from God-occurring. So as sin increased, so, also, did the death toll. How did God feel about this? "The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain."

Grief. Pain. Words associated with death. To God, our sins were making us dead to him. We were daily separating ourselves from him with the words that came out of our mouths, the thoughts that came into our heads, and the actions that came from our hands. God cannot stand sin and cannot be in close contact with it. It would be like us trying to live with pigs for an entire week. We would be offended daily by the scents and antics of our swine acquaintances, find no way of communicating, and just generally be disgusted. It would be impossible for the two species to relate. So were we to God. Our sins were an offensive odor, our actions disgusting for a holy God.

Again, that could be the end of the story. God leaves us in our mess, goes merrily along his way, or wages an enduring and wrathful war against us. But check out Genesis 6 again: "The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain."

God felt pain and grief at our separation from him. He didn't just want to leave us pigs wallowing in our sin. He wanted to find us a way to be back within his presence without any communication barriers. He just wanted us back. But how?

Grave Experience

Enter Jesus. Jesus was God's remedy, his way-maker, and only begotten son. Begotten is the past tense of the word beget, which simply means, "to be the father of."

God sent Jesus to bring us back to him. Many of us know what happens next, but do we really understand the gravity of it all? Do we really get it?

God had every reason in the world to hate us. Had every reason in the world to condemn us to a life of misery and death as a perfectly just God. Instead, he chose to take for us that death. Chose to be mocked, ridiculed, and shamed. Jesus was humiliated before the greatest men of his day. Spit upon and hated, offered up by people he had likely known all his life to be killed in the most brutal way imaginable.

He was treated as a game, a group of men beating him with their fists and jeering, "Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who hit you that time?" (Matthew 26:67, NLT) He was whipped and scourged, every lash digging deeper until muscle and tissue were revealed. A crown of thorns was pressed into soft scalp.

Bloodied and bruised, maybe with a few broken ribs, a cross weighing around 110 pounds is laid across his back for him to carry for 650 yards. His skin is raw and unprotected, and the cross's splinters chafe his opened back. The jeers from the crowd will not stop.

At last at the place of his crucifixion, he collapses in fatigue. He feels the coarse hand of a solider grab his and stretch it out, and next the cold, iron tip of a nail. The nail plunges through tendons and bones.

Next, he is placed upright, the weight of his body pulling down on his throbbing, nail-bitten hands. His shoulders are being stretched like a child dangling on some monkey bars, only excruciatingly worse. (By the way, did you know the word excruciating literally means, "out of crucifying?") Every breath is painful, but he finds just enough to cry out, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Why have you abandoned me to this grief and pain? Why have you left me here to die?

That is how God chose to bring us back to him. By sending his only biological son to die in our place. To take for us the punishment we deserved. In essence, by becoming the pig.

Just so we're clear, Jesus was dead. A Roman soldier pierced his side with a spear just to make sure, and a man named Simon physically took him down from the cross and laid his unresponsive body in a tomb. Jesus was good and gone and in his grave.

Adoption

But through Christ's death, we were now made right with God. Through his sacrifice, Jesus-the sinless one-became the atonement for us, the sinners. Now, at last, the communication barriers had been tossed aside. The stench of our sins was no longer present for those who called upon the name of Jesus to save them from death.

As it says in one of the most well-known Bible passages of all time, "For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16, NLT.)

For those who know they are sinners, believe that Jesus died and rose again to save them, and who ask him to forgive them and come into their hearts, they have now not only been made acceptable to God, but have also been adopted into his family. Stop, and grasp that if you will... wouldn't it be enough for a blameless God to just accept us into his presence? King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Holy of Holies... yeah, I think I'd be good with him just being able to tolerate me and not kill me! But no, our Heavenly Father wanted so much more for us. He wanted us to be a personal part of his family!

Check this: "God sent him (Jesus) to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law to, so that he could adopt us as his very own children." (Galatians 4:5, NLT.)

Adopted by God Almighty, maker of the universe. Could you ask for a better father?

Grave Return?

For those of us who believe, we have this assurance: there will be life after death. How do we know this? Well, we know this for a couple reasons. Number one being that Jesus did not experience a "grave return." After three days laying dead in a tomb, Jesus came back to life, and never returned.

"The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you." (Romans 8:11, NLT.)

So because we know that God had the power to resurrect Jesus after death, so we also know he has the power to do the same for us. Scratch that; not only has, but wants to.

"So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God's wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 5:21, NLT.)

Just for You

As I listened to my dad telling his story that night, something clicked within me. At first, it was just the voice of my dad, reminding me of all the heartbreak it had taken to get me. But then, a second voice-a voice I have come to know and love, saying, "Elizabeth, my daughter, I'd go through it all again just to have you."

It was the voice of my Jesus, and his saying that left me just as speechless as when my dad had said it. The same emotions dug deep into my consciousness, only intensified. I felt so unworthy and ashamed. How could Jesus say that? How could I be worth such a painful, torturous death as a crucifixion? How could I be worth the thorns, the nails, and the cruel taunts of the merciless soldiers who beat and ridiculed him? I wasn't worth that even once, let alone twice.

Just as when my dad had spoken, I wanted to challenge his statement, reject it. It couldn't be true. I did not deserve such uninhibited, freely given love. Why? I asked, struggling with the oppressive feelings of guilt and unworthiness.

If I was willing to die to be able to adopt you once, why wouldn't I be willing to do it a second time? Let me tell ya something: if it took me dying on a cross a second time just to have you, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Still, I argued. Oh, no, Lord! I am not worth it. How can you say that?

Lizzie, if even your father-a human, and sinful man-can honestly say that he would go through what he went through all over again just to have you, how much more can I say it, whose love is perfect and unfailing?

At last, the truth began to wash over me and joyful tears began to find their way to my eyes. For just as clearly as my dad's eyes had spoken to his sincerity, so, too, my Savior's voice: "I would go through it all again, just for you."

There is no greater truth in all the world, and I implore you, reader, to remember what Christ did for you this Easter. May you learn the same lesson my dad taught me, for: He would go through it all again, just for you.