“Imagine feeling intense, excruciating emotional pain–the kind you would imagine one might suffer after the love of their life was unfaithful to them, or their child unexpectedly died. Imagine the black, unendurable depths of that despair. And then imagine feeling that way for no reason at all. None.”

I don’t know if depression can reach the heights of emotion experienced by people who have truly gone through those challenges, though the suicide rate among those with this kind of depression seems to support it. But I imagine that is a pale shadow to what Christ felt in the Garden of Gesthemane.

When we say He paid for our sins and our infirmities, I believe that is meant in a very real sense. Every blow to body, heart, mind, and soul. Every failure, every sickness, every stabbing, sick, dreadful moment of guilt and despair. Every private grief and anguish. Every black depression. Every physical pain, every emotional torment, every mental affliction.

Christ knelt in that Garden and experienced a million, million lifetimes of pain, grief, sickness, sorrow, and sin. He experienced all that the human race ever had, would, or could experience, all on His knees in that garden.

The thought of that suffering makes me shudder, and I know my mind can’t even comprehend the tiniest part of it. And He did it, willingly, for me. For you. For all of us.

I stand, all amazed, at the love Jesus offers me.