A Lenten Lesson

A few weeks ago I made a mistake that affected another.  And it was drastic enough that they came away from the moment cursing me, literally.  I don't know that I've ever been sworn at before, but it's not a happenstance that I'd care to repeat.

Later, upon sitting in the afternoon sunlight with a cup of chamomile tea to calm my nerves, I reflected on the incident, looking for the lesson God had for me in this experience that I knew was there.  A picture came to mind.  That of Christ on the cross being cursed at and blasphemed.  Words came to mind.  Those from Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place about an experience she and her sister had in the concentration camp.  The humiliating experience of being stripped of their clothing before the eyes of the prison guards.  She wrote that God gave her sister a vision of Christ being stripped before his tormentors.  And in that moment, Betsy and Corrie tasted a tiny portion of Christ's sufferings for them.  That realization brought them peace and a bewildering, bittersweet joy even amidst evil.

That picture and those words brought peace to my own soul.  And joy, too.  Realizing that even as I "deserved" to be cursed for my mistake, Jesus did not.  He went through that cursing (and a whole lot more) despite being innocent.  He chose to do it for me.  And to have the privilege of being allowed to enter into His sufferings in just a teeny, tiny way brought thankful tears to my eyes.

Definitely a lesson for Lent worth learning.