This year will mark the second Easter since Jessica died. But before we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, we need to remember that it was on Good Friday that He died. As that day approaches, I find myself dwelling more and more often on Jessica and on how much I miss her and how much I long for just one more chance to talk to her and ask for her forgiveness for the way that I responded to her addiction. Knowing that I will never have the chance to do that has been one of the hardest, most painful truths that I have I ever had to accept. God has done many things in my life since I got that terrible, late-night phone call, and none are more bittersweet than this – that He has opened my eyes and shown me just how deplorably sinful I really am, and how very, very lost and doomed I would be, were it not for His sovereign grace.
Oh, God, where would I be if You turned away from me the way that I turned away from her? How can You love me when I have been so unloving? How can You show me mercy when I have refused to be merciful? How could You spend hours nailed to the torturous cross to pay the price for my sins, when I would not even spend a few minutes in uncomfortable conversation with my own sister? Oh, God, You have shown such love for me, and I have refused to love others the way that You have called me to. I don’t understand it, Lord.
Oh, God, be merciful to me. A sinner.
With Broken Heart and Contrite Sigh
by Cornelius Elven“With broken heart and contrite sigh,
A trembling sinner, Lord, I cry,
Thy pardoning grace is rich and free,
Oh, God, be merciful to me.I smite upon my troubled breast
With deep and conscious guilt oppressed,
Christ and His cross my only plea,
Oh, God, be merciful to me.Far off I stand with tearful eyes
Nor dare uplift them to the skies
But Thou dost all my anguish see
Oh, God, be merciful to me.Nor alms, nor deeds that I have done,
Can for a single sin atone,
To Calvary alone I flee,
Oh, God, be merciful to me.And when redeemed from sin and hell,
With all the ransomed throng I dwell
My raptured song shall ever be,
God has been merciful to me.”
click here to hear part of a beautiful arrangement of this old hymn.
Losing Jess 