When You're In The Pit

Something that's been sitting with me the past few days is this photo I took in Jerusalem last week. This is the very room, a dark and dank pit, where Jesus was kept under the palace of the chief priest, Caiaphas. This was on the night he was betrayed by his closest friends. He would be crucified the very next day.

After the Pharisees spit in his face, slapped him and accused him of blasphemy, they lowered him down into this deep stone pit by ropes through the hole you see above. The rope marks are still there. Though those marks represent his pain, I see a cross, a foreshadow of HOPE.

While I stood in that spot, I imagined what it was like for the Savior of the world to be in such anguish, in the depth of the earth that felt like hell. He surely had begun taking on the sin of the world in his heart, weighing on him to the point of sweating blood just hours beforehand.

Then I thought about the times I have been in a deep dark pit. Times when I wasn't sure I'd get out of it. Seeing that open hole at the top, but unable to lift myself out of it. Sometimes that was from my own bondage to sin. Sometimes that was from unwanted betrayal and hurt. Sometimes it was from unexplainable debilitating anxiety.

Lastly, I thought of you. The ones I long to encourage along your own journey. I thought of your personal pits and what they might be. I thought of how that affects your marriages and intimacy within it. How that makes it so difficult to be fully known and seen.

The pit is dark and deep and lonely. Our spouses can't rescue us. Distractions can't rescue us. A 5 step process the world tries to tell us will not rescue us.

The only One who can truly rescue us from the pit is Jesus Himself. And he can do that because he sat in that pit, taking on all of the darkness of the world, all of the brokenness of sin and shame. He took our darkest hearts' affections, and he took it to the cross, where it was nailed there.

So, if you find yourself in the pit today.... be encouraged! Jesus is here to rescue you from it. He loves you. He's fighting for your marriage and interceding for your victory.

If you need direction and help, please reach out as I'd love to share how you can find release from your prison. How you can claim freedom and victory in your relationship with your spouse, and how you can live by abiding in Christ with abundant freedom.

Psalm 40:2-3 says, "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him."

Love,

Kristi

kristi@abidinglovecoach.com