There may be times we feel God is far from us. We pray and our prayers seem to bounce off a steel wall. We feel abandoned and forgotten, alone and forsaken, hopeless and helpless, adrift in a raging sea without rudder. These are real feelings. But the truth is equally true. God has not nor will ever abandon us no matter what. We may, like Jesus, feel a sense of absence. But even in those moments he is there watching over us, like he was when his Son was dying on the cross for our sins. As Jesus endured that sense of absence for our sake, so we, if we would embrace that feeling of abandonment, we will feel the fatherly presence of God once more.