No matter how hard you look. It’s a crushingly lonely and disorienting feeling. One minute he is there, and then—poof!—the next minute he is gone.
This happened literally to the disciples. One night dinner; the next night death. He warned them of this, of course. His imminent absence. He also gave them a heads up that it would only be temporary, that he would not leave them alone forever. But that either didn’t quite sink in, or else just wasn’t enough to dull the shock of losing him so quickly and with so much violence.
The longer I’ve followed Jesus, and the more I’ve listened to others’ stories, the more I have come to understand that this is a repeated pattern. Proximity and then distance. Intimacy and then absence. It’s normal to come to sense the nearness of Jesus; it is then equally normal to feel like he died all over again and left you alone. But I realize that telling you this in advance is not likely to dull the pain. I suspect that you’ll still have to walk through that grief.
But do take heart. As much as you can, anyways. One day you will not be able to find Jesus. As if he went somewhere that you cannot go, no matter how hard you desire or try. But just as he found you the first time, so will he find you once again.
