Reframing My Affliction Through the Lens of His Affliction
The Story He Authored for Me Didn’t Look Holy—Until It Did.
In the beginning, it took me a while to realize that Jesus was not only the answer to every tender, aching “why,” but also the very reason I had ever begun asking them.
He was already pulling me close, even through the questions.
Her Letter to God:
Jesus, I thank You for Your patience and Your enduring love.
For so long, my eyes were dim, and I walked in confusion.
But now, I finally see the light.
When I think about the things that brought me the deepest pain,
I see You, Jesus.
I see how You, too, walked through those very same wounds.
You are truly at the center of it all— the living prophecy.
If You endured it, then by Your blood—making us one— I know that I can, and most definitely will, endure it too.
I used to ask, Why?
And this is the answer:
Someone had to show me how.
How to survive.
How to keep going.
How to continually be made new.
How to become a witness to the testimonies of Your mercies (love).
How to be the evidence of what You [God] decreed before life ever began.
There is nothing that mankind can face that You, Jesus, haven’t already gone through.
But there’s another side of it.
You’re not just my role model.
You’re the One who orchestrated the painful experiences and hard struggles I had to go through.
You were behind it all—working with purpose, in the uttermost divine and righteous way.
I have to remind myself that You, God, created and formed Yourself in Son-form—as dust— and then sent Yourself down into this dark world.
Despite the hardship You faced,
You never blamed anyone.
You walked through betrayal, rejection, torture, and death
without pointing a finger.
The only time you ever gave voice to the weight of it all
was in a cry to God [Yourself in the form of the Father], saying,
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46)
In that moment, You felt abandoned, alone, and overwhelmed with sorrow. But,
You didn’t blame Judas.
You didn’t blame the officers.
You didn’t blame your children who crucified You.
You didn’t run.
You were a lamb led to slaughter,
and You didn’t make a sound (Isaiah 53:7).
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.”
But what I see in Matthew 27:46, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” is this:
even in the agony of the cross, You turned Your eyes to the Father—the One who formed You and appointed You for that very hour.
So if You are the One who allows these things, or better yet, orchestrates them, and even experienced them Yourself, then to resist them, to run from them, or to fight them is to step outside of Your plans, what You have spoken, or Your desires.
But if I remain in them, receive them, and let them become part of the story You authored from the very beginning, then even my pain is not wasted — it becomes part of the testimony You are writing through my life. That is what it means to live in alignment with You. And I believe that is the law You wrote into me.
“Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD.”
Still, it’s not easy to abide by Your law.
There are moments when it feels almost impossible, especially when it feels like a deliberate setup — because in truth, it is. You led me here, God. You prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies (Psalm 23:5). I have to sit here; I do not have a choice. Some may disagree, because You gave me free will, but free will does not change what You have spoken.
I know that my painful experiences are not the focus. What matters is not what I am going through, but how I respond. You call me not to run, not to defend myself, but to trust You and to sit at the table You have prepared for me for the sake of the anointing.
But I ask, “Where are You, God?”
I lay my supplications before You.
I lift my prayers.
And I say things like:
I want the pain to go away.
I want the story to be different.
I want to escape.
But Jesus didn’t.
All throughout the New Testament, You, God, didn’t allow anyone to lay a hand on Jesus—until it was time.
And when the time came, You used a disciple.
Someone from his own inner circle.
One who shared his bread,
And through that one person, Jesus was set up. He was betrayed, led to the slaughter, and yet He did not make a sound. He just kept His eyes on You with every step He took.
That… is the image of Jesus You are choosing to show me.
That is the likeness of Jesus You are asking me to carry (Genesis 1:26-27).
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
This is the standard.
This is the principle You had in mind when You formed and created me.
And I cannot dishonor that standard—
Not by treating it lightly.
Not by looking away from it.
Not without the reverence it deserves.
If I walk away from what You, God, have allowed into my life,
Then I dishonor the work of Your hands.
I dishonor Jesus.
And I dishonor what He did on the cross.
I become defiled—when BLESSED are the UNDEFILED.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”