She Stood Alone by Jaye Lewis

As we come to the week before Easter, we commemorate the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That is my belief, and it is the belief of all true Christians. Without taking away from this sacred tenant of my faith, that I am lost without Him; that He is my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I tiptoe into another view of that night.

I am no theologian, nor a scholar, nor a traditionalist, nor a Catholic. I aspire to the Evangelical creed that began hundreds of years ago, with the Protestant Reformation. My faith, however, is more compassionate than the originators, but certainly just as passionate.

It is easy, as a Protestant, of any faith, to forget the other “players” in this Divine production: God, Himself, on the Cross, dying so that I might be forgiven, washed by His cleansing blood, alone. But there is one whom we either forget about, or we deify. Both are wrong. She was only a woman; only a mother, and very much alone. This is her story:

She Stood Alone by Jaye Lewis

She stood, alone, with broken heart,

Upon a rocky hill.

The sky was dark, the voices harsh;

Eternity stood still.

She saw His eyes, so full of hurt;

His blood upon her hand;

But, though, He was the Lord of love;

She couldn’t understand.

For wasn’t He just a little boy,

Just a moment before?

Didn’t he cry, when he stumbled and fell,

As she helped him through the door?

Didn’t she wipe away his tears,

And wash away the blood?

Didn’t she lift him safely up,

As he tripped into the mud?

Wasn’t he all the world to her,

Just a baby in her arms?

Cooing and laughing, contentedly,

With all his baby charms?

Didn’t she hold him in the night,

When he ‘woke from terrible dreams?

And didn’t she promise she’d keep him safe,

As she hushed away his screams?

Yet, there she stood, beneath a Cross,

Helpless to ease His pain;

Trusting in God, yet, shuddering so,

As she heard His screams again.

Friendless, alone, abandoned,

Far from His mother’s breast;

A mother’s tears, wet the holy ground,

Where her Son passed His final test.

“It’s FINISHED!” She heard his valiant voice,

As with one, last burst he cried.

His broken body, collapsed on a cross,

She watched as her baby died.

At that moment, the heavens broke,

Redemption had its start;

But the mother remembered tiny hands,

Entwined within her heart.

So, as I await on my own bleak hill,

As my world seems tempest tossed,

I remember a mother, silent and still,

Beneath her “baby’s” Cross.

Jaye Lewis © 2001

At the time that I wrote this poem, my own child was very close to death. While sitting on the back deck, looking at the night sky, I had to ask the question that every mother asks. Why? My answer, and my peace, was this poem. In a strange way, with my own motherly fear, I felt connected to another mother, who stood, not at the Cross of the Savior of the World, but beneath the Cross of her baby. Yet, just as she saw her Son restored to her upon His Resurrection, I, also, received back from God, my own child, who was miraculously healed.

Some may call this thought, and this poem, blasphemy, but I call it the compassion of God, who knows and cares about all mothers.

With love, and Happy Easter,

Jaye Lewis

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