Comfort in the storm - Final A/C treatment

It is 3:30 am. In six hours, a nurse will be accessing my port and beginning the premeds for my final Adriamycin/Cytoxin chemo treatment. Following that, I will have twelve weekly treatments of Taxol, beginning in three weeks. My stomach is clenched in anxiety and dread and my mind is playing a revolving tape, sometimes in the background, sometimes on the forefront. "God, please don't make me! God, please help me. God, please don't make me! God, please help me."
As I was praying this prayer a few minutes ago, I was struck by the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Now don't get me wrong. What I am about to go through, and what He went through are hardly comparable, but as the dread of and anguish over the events looming just around the corner rob me of my sleep and steal my peace, I am reminded of a time nearly two thousand years ago when a man, the Son of God, was in anguish and robbed of peace. Here are two separate recountings of the same event.

Luke 22:39-46: "Then, accompanied by the disciples, Jesus left the upstairs room and went as usual to the Mount of Olives. There he told them, “Pray that you will not give in to temptation.”He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed,“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” Then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him. He prayed more fervently, and he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood."

Matthew 26:36-46: "Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.” He took Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.”

Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!”

Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, “My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done.” When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open.

So he went to pray a third time, saying the same things again. Then he came to the disciples and said, “Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But look—the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!”

A few things jump out at me in these passages. The first one is this. Jesus, in His anguish, was brutally honest. "I don't want to do this!! Please don't make me do this!" but He also never lost sight of Who He was and what He had come for "I want your will to be done, not mine." In response, God the Father sent an angel to comfort Him. He didn't remove the suffering that Jesus was about to endure, but He gave Him the strength to endure it. Sometimes we pray in our anguish that God will remove the storms causing us pain, but instead He provides us the strength to walk through them.
Something else I noticed in the reading of Matthew's version of events is that Jesus didn't beg God the Father once. He, too, had a "tape" playing: "God, please don't make me. God, please don't make me. God, please don't make me." His anguish was deep. His pain was soul-wrenching. His plea was strong and heart-felt. And when He was done pouring His broken heart out to God, He got up and did what He had to do, for you and for me.
There is much about the Bible, Christ and Christianity that I do not understand, but this I do know. Jesus loved us with a love beyond compare. He faced an agony so intense because He knew what was ahead. He knew He would be brutally beaten and hung on a cross. He knew He was about to have the weight of the sins of the entire world cast on Him. His soul was in anguish, and still He went through with it...because He loved His Father and because, together, they loved us.
When you are going through something that is ripping you to shreds and you think that God just doesn't understand, think again. He does. He understands completely, but maybe His ultimate plan is not to save you from your pain. Maybe His plan is to walk with you through it.