Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” – Mark 14:35-36

Jesus not only wept.

Jesus surrendered.

He was God incarnate

Yet he surrendered to His Father

No gentle request but a direct command

Take this cup.

Yet

One little word

Yet

Jesus uses it to submit his own desires

To show us what submission looks like

It isn’t to stop hoping for things to be

Different

It isn’t to fail to ask him to change

What is

We still ask for his favor

For healing

For the end to sorrow

Yet

I think back to Ruth

Would she have chosen to marry someone

Knowing he would die?

Leaving her penniless?

Following her mother in law

A stranger in a strange land

A beggar

Gleaning wheat in the field

Of a kinsman-redeemer

A story no Hallmark movie could ever compare

How she found favor in his eyes

And bore Naomi a grandchild

Even becoming part of the line of Christ

If she had known the sorrow and loss that was coming

So much loss and so much uncertainty

Would she have offered that one word

Yet

Or Mary who might have dreamed of a lovely wedding

To a man she loved

Finding herself single and pregnant

Joseph prepared to divorce her

Quietly

Stopped only by an angel

Judged by others for what they assumed was her sin

Having to endure the stares

The scornful looks

And a trip on a donkey to Bethlehem

Who would want to take a trip in their final month of pregnancy

On a donkey no less?

Having to give birth in a smelly barn

Having to flee the king’s jealous edict

Warned by only a dream?

Yet

And the women who wept

When the king’s soldiers came for their babies

Murdering them out of their very arms

Inconsolable

So prophecy would be fulfilled

Jesus the savior child being born into a violent world

He had come to save

Yet

And how do I use this three-letter word?

In the waiting

In the not yet but hopefully soon

In the complaining

Yet more of what seems like it will never end

But rarely in the however

Yet not my will but His be done

And since Christianity is not moralism

But relationship

An imitation, a call to be like Christ

We too are called to submit our wills

Our comfort

To the will of our Father

To offer him our Yet

As a fragrant offering

Stories would be boring if they were always predictable

And even though I sometimes enjoy a good Hallmark movie

Or an action film where the hero always wins

No matter the odds

The story He is writing is more complex than that

He is a better author

Will we let him write the ending of stories?

When the world is caving in?

When things are not going as expected?

When illness or a diagnosis comes out of the blue?

When a loved one is suffering?

When friends or even family members have turned their backs on us?

Will we trust Him in the middle of the story

The part where you really don’t know what will happen next

Completely caught off guard by a plot twist you never saw coming?

The book I want to write for my life would be full of sunshine

But it is the rain that brings growth

That makes the soil of my heart soft

I think my story would be far too small a thing

black and white

Oh the glorious tale He is weaving in the world

full of color

Lord grant me your favor this day

Yet

Not what I will

But what you will.