Isaiah 63:9 (NLT) In all their suffering, He also suffered. He personally rescued them. In His love and mercy He redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them through all the years.

I’ve been reading through Ezekiel with The Bible Recap plan and Bible Project video overviews. I learned that when God sends His people into Babylonian exile, His glory departs the Temple and He leaves it to its fate of destruction. His Glory heads east to Babylon and His Remnant. He tells them that He will be their sanctuary for this time in exile.

So picture all of this: The Temple was supposed to be the special home for God, made with the treasures King David had stored up for this project his heart longed to build. His son King Solomon is the one to build it, this elaborate building no one had seen before or since. God fills it with His presence as a visible cloud! Imagine the stunning vision! However, time moves on and the people’s sins increase. They forget their God and pursue other idols, selfishness, and evil. God warns them for centuries to come back to Him, but they never do. Finally, it’s too much to ignore. His presence leaves the Temple, and He destroys it and His people just as He said He would if they continued in their sin.

Yet Ezekiel sees in visions that God still doesn’t give up on His people. He promised He would save a remnant of His people. This remnant He sends in exile to Babylon. And it’s this remnant that God follows into exile! Even in exile, God is there! Even in our pain, God is there with us!

But here’s the heartbreaking point of the story. Ezekiel 10:19 says that as God is leaving the Temple, He stops at the East Gate. Tara Leigh Cobble from The Bible Recap says it’s like He takes one last longing look at what once was, what could have been, and what was lost. Then He moves forward…but He moves toward His people.

This resonated with me. I broke down and cried for a long time. God truly does know how we feel. In my mind, I was flung back in time when I discovered my husband’s infidelity. We were in the early days of restoration, and it destroyed me. There was a part of me that hated my husband after this revelation. I hated what he had done to us. There was a part of me that didn’t want him anymore. I begged God to release me from him, from our marriage, from the pain. He wouldn’t do it. He just let me cry and rant and rave. God knew exactly how I felt. I mourned the loss of purity in our marriage. Our marriage bed had been defiled and we could NEVER go back! It could NEVER BE UNDONE! The Lord let me grieve. He had done the same with His people, Israel. He even compared them multiple times to adulterous wives! But, He wouldn’t let me give up on my marriage or my husband, just like he NEVER gave up completely on His people. In spite of His sadness and grief, He had a plan through it…eventually, He would send His Son to make the ultimate sacrifice to not only redeem Israel, but make a way for ALL to come to Him! There was beauty in His plan, purpose in His own grief!

There was beauty and purpose in mine as well. I’m so grateful I didn’t give up on my husband. I’m so glad I didn’t walk away from my marriage, because it could no longer be what it was! It ended up being better! My marriage today is strong and intimate and blessed. We’ve still gone through some awful, terrible things since, like poverty, house loss, and especially our daughter’s leukemia, but we’ve done it together in trust, love, and with the Lord.

As a side note, I also remember a time after leukemia when I kept looking back at pictures before cancer struck our family. I’d long to go back in time before our daughter’s diagnosis to simpler days, to less painful days; days that weren’t so hard. God knows this pain too. He truly understands. He’s not so big, He can’t feel. He’s not so great, He can’t hurt!

In all our suffering, we forget God suffers too. It’s never hit me like it has today, just how much God suffers when we hurt Him, when we walk away, when we choose to sin. But regardless of His pain, He’s still merciful; He’s still faithful. Our minds can’t conceive how wonderful He truly is!

Remember, He is right there with you in your pain and He knows exactly how you feel.