My God, My God, Why Have We Abandoned You?

By: RYAN M. SHAW

I stood outside St. James, staring at the cross. Not the kind inside the sanctuary, clean and polished, but one exposed to the elements, weathered and worn. It felt familiar. It felt real. Kind of like me. I don’t know how long I stood there, but it was long enough for the noise in my head to catch up with me. The memories came like they always do, the kind you don’t invite, the kind you carry home from places most people will never see. Multiple deployments will do that to you. You learn how to stay alert when your body wants to shut down, how to move and react without hesitation, how to survive. And somewhere along the way, you learn to rely on one thing above everything else, yourself. Your training, your instincts, your ability to push through when everything inside you is telling you to stop. And when I came home, I didn’t leave that mindset behind. I brought it with me.

At first, it made sense. It helped me function. Helped me stay in control. Helped me deal with the things I didn’t want to talk about, the things I couldn’t explain, the things that woke me up at night or sat quietly in the back of my mind during the day. I told myself I had it handled, that I was strong enough, that I didn’t need anything else. But strength can be deceptive. Because the more I relied on myself, the less I relied on God. And the less I relied on God, the quieter He seemed, until eventually, it felt like He wasn’t there at all. So, standing there, staring at that cross outside St. James, the question hit me harder than I expected: was I even good enough for Jesus anymore? After everything I had seen, after everything I had done, after the way I had lived since coming home, I didn’t feel clean. I didn’t feel whole. I didn’t feel like someone God would want back. And that’s when the words came to mind: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46). It felt honest. It felt like the only thing I could say.

But even as the thought settled in, something shifted. Not loud or dramatic, just enough to make me stop and think. Because if I was honest, really honest, it hadn’t been God who walked away. It had been me. It didn’t happen all at once. It never does. It started small, missed prayers, missed Sundays, Scripture pushed aside because I didn’t have the energy or maybe because I didn’t want to be reminded of what I felt disconnected from. Then came the justifications: I’ve been through too much. I’ll deal with this my own way. God doesn’t understand what I’ve seen. So, I handled it myself. I buried it. Controlled it. Managed it, or at least, I thought I did. But the truth is, the things I carried weren’t getting lighter. They were getting heavier. And no matter how strong I tried to be, there were quiet moments where it all started to crack. That’s when another verse surfaced: “For I am the Lord, I do not change.” (Malachi 3:6,). God hadn’t changed. God hadn’t moved. God hadn’t abandoned me.

I looked back at the cross, and for the first time, I didn’t just see a symbol, I saw what it meant. That cross wasn’t for the perfect. It was for people like me. “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8). Not after I figured it out, not after I cleaned myself up, but while I was still carrying everything I didn’t know what to do with. The cross wasn’t rejection, it was rescue. Even when Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” it wasn’t the end of the story, because Psalm 22 continues: “For he has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy… he has not turned his back on them.” (Psalm 22:24). God didn’t turn His back then, and He hadn’t turned His back on me now. Now Easter came into focus, not as a holiday or tradition, but as truth: “He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen.” (Matthew 28:6). The resurrection meant something I had never fully understood before, God didn’t leave. God stayed. Through the war, through the silence, through the distance I created, He was still there.

I realized then that the question I had been asking all along was wrong. It wasn’t “God, why did You abandon me?” It was “Why did I abandon You?” And even that realization didn’t come with condemnation, it came with invitation. “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in.” (Revelation 3:20). He never stopped knocking, even when I stopped answering. I sometimes still stare at that cross outside St. James. The same cross, but I am not the same. Not completely changed, not instantly healed, but aware. Awake. I stopped questioning whether I was good enough for Jesus, because I finally understood the truth: I never was, and I never had to be. That’s why He went to the cross. I was looking at that cross and realized that I didn’t have an accusation, but a confession: “My God… my God… why did I abandon You?” And in the stillness that followed, there was no silence, only grace, only truth, and the quiet, unshakable answer of Easter: HE NEVER LEFT.