Pain

"Lamb of God, you take away the sin shit of the world…"

I was standing in church this morning, singing. Not only was I singing, my mind was spinning. My thoughts were going crazy.
"How will I survive this week without Beck? (my new service dog who I do not get to officially bring home until next week). How will I survive midterms? I am not stable. I have too much anxiety. I cannot do this, but I have to. I don't want to go back to school. I just don't know what to do!"

Then, as I am singing, I paused and stare at the screen. Thoughts raced through my mind again.
"Could this really be what I am seeing. Was there a typo or something? What church song says 'shit' in it?!"

I did read the screen wrong. There was no typo. It said sin, not shit. But, now that I think about it, I think "shit" would fit pretty well into that song.

Lamb of God (okay, so Jesus), you take away the [shit] of the world (now what does this mean? especially since I changed a word...)

Lets define what "shit" is first. (If you have not read my previous blog, "Amidst the Shit", I recommend you go read that after this.) Shit- one of the most commonly used curse words that has a couple totally different meanings. But, the meaning I want to discuss is the shit that happens in our lives, the bad stuff. Shit like, losing your job, breaking up with a significant other, the death of a loved one, diseases, illnesses, the list could go on and on. This shit sucks. We've all had shit in our lives that we have had to work through and I'm sure it has not always been easy.

But, God will take away your pain, your suffering, your shit. God will be with you wherever you go. How do I know this? Because of the sacrifice of Jesus; His death and resurrection.

I will leave you with my favorite quote from Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton as she spoke to youth leaders at the 2015 youth ministry network extravaganza:

“...God knows that... God knows that pain, because God took on our own life. And God has done something about that in the death and resurrection of Jesus and though it might really suck right now (and that's a technical theological term, which I'm sure you've used) and though it may really suck right now to be you. GOD WON'T LET YOU ALONE, and YOU have life. That's pretty Good News... actually that's excellent Good News...