THE FOURTH WORD
My God, My God, why have you forsaken me
(Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34).
The Word of Abandonment
(photo by Pastor Keith)

There are no footprints in the sand, are there?
Not in the life I know.
The shore of life is rocky, hard, often unforgiving;
our feet complaining every step, 
We see nothing, the distance stretching out,
to a horizon beyond the beyond. 
We walk in loneliness, often.
We pray, we cry out to God in faith,
taking no comfort in a pithy phrase or cheery quip. 
It is no sin to thirst deeply for God, 
when in our parched souls
the doubt and fear of the 
forsakeness of God may deem to dwell;
God can take our doubt, expects it,
the tension in which we humans live,
live and death, faith and doubt, trust and fear,
the nearness of God through it all,
strong in compassion,  unwavering in love.