Momedy Sketch: What Comfort This Sweet Sentence Gives

Gethsemane has been on my mind this week. Well this month really. The idea that Christ took upon Him all the sins and pains of the world that night in the Garden, has always blown my mind for want of a more reverent term, but perhaps never so much as it does this Easter, which occurs after an intense month of becoming acquainted with my own personal Gethsemane on various different levels.
I have felt pain in various forms this month.
The pain of childbirth was the most intense physical pain I have ever experienced. At the same time, I don’t think I have ever felt such an intense connection with the power of the Atonement to deliver us from physical pain as I did after crying out to the Lord in the midst of it. It was a profoundly humbling moment in time. Not humbling in a degrading sense, but humbling in intensity of my awareness of how much I needed Him. And because of that, there was beauty in experiencing that pain.
The pain of watching my baby suffer through an illness when she was so new and so vulnerable was one of the most intensely painful experiences I have had as a mother. But through the dark, scary nights I gained an increased understanding of the agony of helplessness He must have felt when He sacrificed His power to save His Son from such exquisite suffering on the cross and in the garden.
This month I have felt the pain of depression, of despair, the pain of loneliness, guilt, fear and isolation. This month I have also felt overwhelming joy, sublime satisfaction, love beyond description, and deep fulfillment. This month has allowed me to experience the tiniest inkling of the pains the Saviour must have felt in the Garden, and allowed me to experience the joy He made possible through His sacrifice.
I have no idea how He he bore it all. I may never understand it, but I do know that He did it. I am so profoundly grateful for all that He has done for me. For all that He will do for me. I am grateful for all the pain He took upon Him to spare me from bearing it, and I am so grateful that He is by my side for when I do have to experience it. My kind, wise, heavenly Friend.
Never have the words to this my favourite hymn been more meaningful to me.

I know that My Redeemer Lives
What comfort this sweet sentence gives!
He lives to comfort me when faint;
He lives to hear my soul’s complaint.
He lives to silence all my fears;
He lives to wipe away my tears;
He lives to calm my troubled heart;
He lives all blessings to impart.
He lives to bless me with his love;
He lives to plead for me above;
He lives my hungry soul to feed;
He lives to help in time of need.
He lives, my kind, wise, heavenly friend;
He lives and loves me to the end
Oh sweet the joy this sentence gives
I know that My Redeemer Lives