Thoughts from a boat

I found myself sitting on the bottom of a small boat racing towards Roatan and the hospital. The ride seemed to be taking so much longer at that moment.  A sheet covered my patient who was laying next to me on the floor of the boat on a small mattress. Every now and then I’d pull back the sheet that was shading him from the unfiltered sunlight to see if he was still conscious.  There was very little else to do as the boat slapped against the sea.  I stared up at the hot sky and prayed. How to I process this?  How do I respond! Injury had been caused to another out of anger.  I ached deeply, knowing that the blow was dealt by someone familiar and the painful sobs I’d heard from this boy spoke more of the injury to the soul than to the head.  Jesus? What do I do with this? How do I respond? I felt angry and overwhelmed.  

And then Jesus answered.  He knows what it is to have those near him turn against him and cause horrific pain.  He bore a crown of thorns and then men took clubs and beat down the crown upon his head, bashing those thorn into his skull.  Jesus took this moment in time upon himself.  He accepted that piercing crown, his head bled, so that the hate and hurt that caused this boy’s head to now bleed could be dealt with and forgiven. So that sin and death could be crushed. Jesus took this.  I was still sitting in the boat.  But the anger towards the one who inflicted the injury was resolved. I still hate that this happened, but I sensed a deep compassion and ache for the one who caused this.  Later that day I heard these words: “I just want to be cherished”.  Oh the things our souls were made for but from which we are so far; deceived by lies and our self-will, we abandon the safe place where things are True and right.  Only grace lets me put my arms around the one who did this, and pray with them that they might realize the love of the One who does cherish them.