He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces ... -- Isaiah 53:3 (ESV)

In a strange way, that aspect of JESUS' life -- the rejection, the sorrow, the grief -- is what compels me the most these days.

I woke up again this morning (at 5 a.m.) with my emotions rattled from a dream I was having about seeing my children. I looked over to Abigail, she was crying, and my emotions spiked and woke me up. I wish I could have stayed there.

As I tossed and turned, ruminating on my grief, I thought of Isaiah 53:3. It didn't make the pain go away, but it made me thankful that God simply knows. He knows suffering. The Father via the Son's suffering ("He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"), and the Son was, as Isaiah points out, "acquainted with grief."

I'm alright now. But at any time during the day I can have a "Then I remember" moment. I had one yesterday at work, just sitting at my desk. I had to fight back tears and regain composure.

In order to deal with the pain of life, I have several needles to choose from: food, TV, games, books, sleep, the Internet, et cetera. There are some I've never been tempted to try; alcohol abuse and narcotics come to mind. There are some, by God's grace, I'll never go back to. Through it all, though, His pain -- His blood -- is the salve my wounds ache for. And by His grace I am hopefully "always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested ..." (2 Cor. 4:10).

The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.
-- George MacDonald (via C.S. Lewis)