Jordan Brooks Adams, MA

“…nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”
‭‭Luke‬ ‭22:42‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Cry, but don’t crumble. That’s all I can hear this morning, a mantra repeated in my spirit. The circumstances of this pandemic are hitting me hard right now. And after another disappointing and stressful email around 4:50 am, I laid in bed crying to God. The stress, the disappointment, the hurt — sometimes it just all feels like too much. So I told God, “I’m crying because I’m stressed and scared and I can’t logic through this right now… but I’m praying because I believe You.” So here I am writing this reminder, just after 5:30 am, holding both—faith and fear, stress and certainty. Cry, but don’t crumble.

How appropriate that my humanity cries in the same week Jesus even cried in the garden. When Jesus knelt in the garden, He prayed in earnest desire to be removed from the path of pain and agony set before Him. Though His divinity knew it was the only way, His humanity didn’t want to go through it because He knew what was before Him. So he prayed, and prayed. I imagine He cried, salted tracks mixing with the blood that pored along his face. I imagine He begged God, much in the same way that we also cry out in anguish before Him. I find comfort in knowing that Jesus felt all the emotions just like us, even as the Word tells us “For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [committing any] sin” (‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭4:15‬ ‭AMP).‬‬ His prayerful anguish is my favorite part of this passage, because in it, I see the honesty of my own tears, and the complexity of holding faith and fear.

And yet, like Him, I am reminded: cry, but don’t crumble. That is what “nevertheless” means! Despite all that may throw us off in any season of our lives, we can cry, but we cannot crumble. He has us and this and each circumstance and moment in His control.