January's Icy Hands

Journal for Christa—

January’s chilling touch can reach out and take hold of me. It also doesn’t help on these wintry days that we rise before dawn and leave work as the sun is setting over the Peak. Some days, some epochs are cold—cold as death.

And Death’s icy hands had taken hold of Martha and Mary’s hearts and Lazarus’ very life breath. Jesus certainly knew of Death’s great tragedy and triumph. As Martha and Mary’s hands wiped away their tears, did He recall that first woman’s hand as it lifted the fruit to her lips? Did He glance in the future at His own hands and foresee the nail prints there?

John could not possibly know as he recounts for us the story.

What John does tell us is that after Jesus wept—for the women? for death? for the penalty it demanded?—He prayed. And in that prayer He emphatically says that the Father always hears Him.

So in the clasp of the cold, when prayer can feel like a breath’s vapor on a cold frosty day, that God, this God, hears all, sees all, and has His hand over all—even when pain chills us to our very souls and would tell us otherwise.

When we believe Him when we don’t feel Him, that’s called faith.