A man comes on the bus wailing and crying into his phone. I over hear that he is talking to his mom. The tone in his voice immediately peaks my interest. I over hear that social services is about to take his son. He received a phone call from them saying that if he didn’t get home right away they would take him. He just barely manages to communicate this in between sobs. He talks about other problems he is going through. Some girl, I presume a wife or girlfriend, is just getting out of the hospital, his truck has been repossessed, and he is in the middle of moving. Most of these are problems I have never had to deal with. I feel like I would like to help him, but I feel overcome with inability. What could I possibly do or say to give him any comfort. As I sit there I say a prayer. I pray that the God who loves family would keep his together and also make them into a family pleasing to him. The truth is that I don’t know the circumstances. Is there real cause for his son to be taken away? Or is there an ex-wife making accusations against him? There are a lot of scenarios that could be possible. I know prayer is very powerful, but do I substitute it for action? I think maybe I do. I need to learn to do both. I think that both prayer and action done in faith can be very powerful things.
A woman tries to give him comfort after he gets off the phone but he is too upset to listen to anything she has to say. She is in mid sentence when he yells at the bus driver to let him off he needs to transfer to a different bus. He steps off the bus and throws the drink in his hand into the bush and screams in anguish. He is visibly shaken and upset, and understandably so. He obviously loves his son. The thought of loosing him has moved something so deep at his core that he cannot hide his emotion. I wonder if God the Father felt this way as Jesus was being led to the mountaintop to be crucified. His son, against whom false accusations were being charged, was about to die. Maybe even the Father, who has the ability to see the outcome, was over come with grief. Maybe that moment of separation was almost unbearable for Him. It was almost unbearable for Jesus who was wholly God, and wholly human.
