My Bronze Serpent

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross

With their patience worn out by the journey, the people complained against God and Moses,
"Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!"

In punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit the people so that many of them died.
Then the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you. Pray the LORD to take the serpents from us."
So Moses prayed for the people, and the LORD said to Moses, "Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if any who have been bitten look at it, they will live."
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole, and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent  looked at the bronze serpent, he lived".

The people are tired, exhausted, frustrated from their long journey and they complain. I can relate to that.
They question why. I can relate to that also.

 And then they are punished- bitten by the serpent and many died. Death. Pain. Fear. They go to Moses and beg him to ask the Lord to spare them from this death and pain that the serpents bring.

The response from the Lord: for Moses to make a bronze serpent and mount it to a pole for the people to gaze upon. After they had been bitten by the serpent, if they but gazed upon this bronze serpent that was mounted on the pole, they would live.

I guess I find it interesting that the Lord chose not to spare them from the pain of the serpents, but he asks them but to look upon the very thing that was causing death, fear, panic, anxiety- to just look upon it and there they would find life.

I am sure that this is what the Lord asks of each of us in each of our own lives – to take that which is robbing us of our joy, our lives, and our peace and to put it on the Cross with Him and then to gaze upon it. It is in the midst of looking there that we will find life.

That is the part I stink at – finding life in the midst of our sufferings. I am not good at that at all. I feel like my sufferings seem to consume me these days and I find myself being bitter, angry, and resentful.

 My hope is that by blogging I can learn from those around me who have the same struggles, because I feel like my husband and I are alone in real life (though I know we are not- we have incredibly supportive families standing with us). I want this to be a place where I can find the positives within the negatives (this means a happy post tomorrow!). I want to have joy again. I want to make peace with the cards I have been dealt. I want to find the strength to fight this battle. I want to learn to find life in the midst of my sufferings. I don’t feel like I have enough faith or trust to do that. Which is probably why God is calling me to start right there – with discovering life in the midst of pain and fear.