by Eileen Norman

Created on: October 10, 2009

My Good Friday God

What kind of God are you, dying like that?

I want a real God, a fix it God,

not one that gets himself crucified.

You're just as helpless as the rest of us.

Here we are dying together.

What a weird way to save a world!

Such sorrow pierced your mother.

Yet, she didn't run away.

She stayed there suffering too.

Was she filled with a mother's self doubt?

Could she have done anything

that would have made a difference?

I watched my mother die by inches.

Her dignity destroyed

by fourteen years of Alzheimer's.

I've seen my children make choices

with tragic consequences.

I could only ask, Am I to blame?

I listened to my friend whose mind

had become her enemy.

I heard her despair, yet could not help.

I hate being helpless, not good enough

or smart enough to help

even the ones I love the most.

Your many miracles in my small life

seem so long ago.

Amazing answered prayers and joy

blessed all my days.

Now there's just my brokenness

and my Good Friday God.

I think about the expectations

you gave your Apostles.

Only Judas got the picture.

How disillusioned he became.

He must have felt that you

were betraying them all.

Sometimes I'm just like Judas,

recognizing that we

are all sheep being shorn.

I'm as cowardly as Peter

but like him, I ask;

Where else would I go?

Because I know as well as John

that your love is perfect,

I need nothing more.

And though like doubting Thomas,

I fear a hard ending,

you are my Lord and my God,

So I ask the grace to follow

though through the cross you call,

my Good Friday God

who died to set me free.

My Lord and My God,

all that I need.

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