Dec 28, 2015

“My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?”

Marleigh Fiacco

Verona SDB Church, NY

One of the few times I actually felt like God was carrying me was this past October. My depression had come back and my life seemed to be spinning out of control. It got to a point where it took all that I had just to get out of bed in the morning. I was already out of energy. I was already out of strength. For two months, I prayed the same prayer every morning. “God, I need you. I don’t have the strength to get through this day. Please give me yours.”

It was hard to take that step out of the door. Some days I just couldn’t do it and I climbed back in bed. I hid from the world and I prayed that someday I would get better. All the while, God was holding me and telling me that it was going to be okay.

In the poem “Footprints,” there is a man who looks back on his life and during the happiest moments he saw two sets of footprints, but in his darkest moments he only saw one. This man looked to God and said, “I don’t understand why when I needed you most you would leave me.” Many of us have reacted this way. We look at our struggles and ask God, “Why have you forsaken me?” For some reason, we believe that He is not there and that He does not care. But if God is omnipresent then how can He not be there?

In the poem God answers, “My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.” What a great Father we have! During our darkest moments, when we don’t have any strength left, He carries us. He uses His strength to get us through. We may not be able to get through the day on our own, but we can get through it with God. And we may not understand why we are struggling, but we can always have faith that God is there. Life may drag us down and things may get rough, but just remember that when you are weakest, it is then that He carries you.