Should've Been Me

Sept. 20, 2012

I was driving this afternoon and thinking about two different things at the same time.  I’m not sure if that is being a bit scattered or it is giftedness.  So, I’ll just choose to land on the positive one.  I was thinking about Kelsey and her new diagnosis of Lyme and what suffering she has been through over the last 2 ½ years.  I so admire her and the grace and sheer determination she has displayed during this time.  As a mom, I want to take it from her.  It hurts so much to see her hurt.  I’d so much rather just have it myself.  “Why couldn’t it have been me?” I thought.

I was also wondering and praying about what I would write about this week.  “God, what do you want me to write?” I asked aloud.  It was then that my attention was drawn to a song introduction that gave the motivation for writing the song.  The artist was leading worship at a summer church camp and he asked the kids what had impacted them the most over the week.  One stood up and said, “I’ve always known that Jesus died for our sins but what hit me this week is that it really should have been me up there.”  The artist said he had never heard it put this way and it stuck with him so he wrote a song about it.

It’s so unfair that Jesus had to pay for my sins.  He bore the persecution, the pain, the guilt, and the scars for me.  But God took that payment, and therefore, I am free.  Through His mighty gift of grace, He took care of me.  I can’t quite describe how it all works together, but in the same way that God took care of Jesus, took him from his pain, and even raised him in victory over it, I believe that God will work the same with Kelsey.  Someone told me yesterday that God knows Kelsey and that He will take care of her.  In the wake of hearing the diagnosis yesterday, I had a hard time hearing that.  Today, I get it a little better. 

I still wish that it would’ve been me to get this illness.  Now, though, I know that because God knows Kelsey, He will raise her in victory over this damned illness.

The song is “Should’ve Been Me” by Citizen Way.