24
January 2016 • SR
SR
One of the few times I actually felt like God was carrying
me was this past October. My depression had come back
and my life seemed to be spinning out of control. It got
to a point where it took all that I had just to get out of
bed in the morning. I was already out of energy. I was
already out of strength. For two months, I prayed the
same prayer every morning. “God, I need you. I don’t
have the strength to get through this day. Please give
me yours.”
It was hard to take that step out of the door. Some days
I just couldn’t do it and I climbed back in bed. I hid from
the world and I prayed that someday I would get better.
All the while, God was holding me and telling me that it
was going to be okay.
In the poem “Footprints,” there is a man who looks back
on his life and during the happiest moments he saw two
sets of footprints, but in his darkest moments he only saw
one. This man looked to God and said, “I don’t understand
why when I needed you most you would leave me.”
Many of us have reacted this way. We look at our struggles
and ask God, “Why have you forsaken me?” For some
reason, we believe that He is not there and that He does
not care. But if God is omnipresent then how can He not
be there?
In the poem God answers, “My precious, precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you. During your times
of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of foot-
prints, it was then that I carried you.” What a great Father
we have! During our darkest moments, when we don’t
have any strength left, He carries us. He uses His strength
to get us through. We may not be able to get through
the day on our own, but we can get through it with God.
And we may not understand why we are struggling, but
we can always have faith that God is there. Life may drag
us down and things may get rough, but just remember
that when you are weakest, it is then that He carries you.
Marleigh Fiacco
Verona SDB Church, NY
Young Adult
Let me tell you a story. From kindergarten through 6th
grade, I went to an extremely private, extremely small,
and extremely Christian elementary school. Looking
back, the fact that it was isolated by about two miles of
thick forest was one of its less cult-y aspects. It was very
strict about language and ideas, and seemed to think
that worshipping God and having fun were two mutually
exclusive activities.
Then, in 7th grade, I transitioned to a public middle
school. As you can imagine, this transition was about as
smooth as cutting and splicing a scene from a Tarantino
movie into an episode of
Veggietales
. Suddenly I was
thrust from an environment where saying “gosh” would
get you reprimanded because it sounds too much like
using God’s name in vain, into one where language that
would make a trucker blush wouldn’t get a second look.
In my old school, you tended to get the same types of
Christians. Sure there were differences, but never any-
thing major. At this new school, I was surrounded by a
wide variety of beliefs and religious perspectives.
While this new school probably hasn’t left me the wide-
eyed pure-of-heart goody-two-shoes little boy I was be-
fore, its experiences have brought me to this conclusion:
understanding the way other people believe can better
strengthen your relationship with God, as well as with
other believers. It’s easy to live your life in a sort of
religious bubble, thinking that if you don’t love God in
THIS specific way or in THIS specific mindset then you’re
not a REAL Christian, and that’s simply not the case.
Our scriptures have been re-translated and reinterpreted
hundreds upon thousands of times. It’s not unreasonable
to expect a few differences. If you spend your whole life
saying the Lord’s Prayer with “Forgive us our debts,” it’s
important to understand and accept that there are some
who have always said “Forgive us our trespasses.”
THE BEACON
Duane Davis
Seattle Area SDB Church, WA
Forgive Us Our TRESPASSES
“My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?”
