John 12:27

"Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour."
John 12:27


This is instructive... I think that we all go through this, perhaps not quite as dramatically as Christ, who knew the suffering and death that were to befall him... but we all do the same things in our lives.  There are things that are incredibly difficult for us all to deal with, and we want to run away, to escape... to not deal with it, but just ignore it, hoping it will disappear... :)  But, sincerely... for this cause came we to this hour.  Difficulties are in our lives for a reason, and this earth life is something that we chose to do, something that we probably even looked forward to, and from which we knew that we would get huge scads of knowledge from... learning everything that we could.  The difficulties are part of the experience.  We don't learn anything from an easy life.  Not that that is much comfort, I do know... but knowing what Christ went through... he did have the power to save himself from that fateful hour, but didn't.  He went through the hardest thing he had ever faced, and learned from it.  Who he is now is the result of that eternity-altering test.  And so it is with us, although probably to a lesser degree.  Who we are is altered by these tests in our lives... and, in the end, who we have become is what will matter.