I have been meditating or lingering, slowly and deliberately, with what Gifford describes as perichoretic salvation: the third type of perichoretic relationship, often named in Scripture as being “in Christ.” The more I sit with it, the more the Spirit opens my eyes, not to a new doctrine, but to a deeper way of understanding the relationship we are invited into with our Creator. For those who want a fuller theological context, I explored this framework more formally in an earlier post: Perichoretic Salvation.

Recently, I also wrote about what it means to say, without sentimentality, that our tears are, in a very real sense, Christ’s tears as well (Where Our Tears Meet His: The Mystery of Mutual Suffering). What I did not know at the time was that the day that post went live online would become the hardest day of my wife’s life.

Note: This reflection builds directly on two earlier posts—Perichoretic Salvation and Where Our Tears Meet His: The Mystery of Mutual Suffering. While this piece can stand on its own, it will be most fully understood when read in conversation with them, as together they trace the theological and experiential journey that led here.

We spent long hours in the ICU with her best friend on life support. We had arrived the day before, after she had already been declared brain dead, and we stayed with her through the night, well past midnight and into the next day, to say goodbye. There were no abstractions left, only grief, shock, love, and the unbearable weight of farewell. Tears flowed freely. It was only later that I realized, almost with disbelief, that this was the very day the article, Where Our Tears Meet His, was scheduled to publish. The academic had become painfully concrete. What I had been writing about was no longer theoretical. It was something we were living inside of.

I did not know my wife’s friend the way she did, but I found myself grieving deeply nonetheless. What I was experiencing was not my own loss so much as shared loss. Her tears became my tears. Her pain became my pain. I was with her in her suffering. And in that moment, I became even more convinced that there is a kind of perichoretic relationship between people, where one does not simply observe the other’s pain, but participates in it. The type of relationship that I think is most intensely like it is the one between husband and wife.

I often think of our relationship as a journey or an adventure of sorts. Like Frodo and Samwise, we travel together through mountain peaks and valley bottoms, through light and shadow, for better or for worse. That day, we were very much in the shadow of Mordor.

As we drove home, exhausted and hollowed out, we listened to my Morning Songs playlist. Two songs in particular rose to the surface: “There Was Jesus” and “The Blessing.” As I listened, it struck me that both were giving voice, without the theological language, to what Gifford had been describing: the lived reality of the third perichoretic relationship. Christ truly with us in suffering. Not as a distant observer. Not as a detached comforter. But as one who participates.

The song There Was Jesus echoes the well-known poem Footprints in the Sand, the reminder that we are not alone in our darkest moments. In the ICU that day, Christ was not absent. He was there. Yes, God is omnipresent, but this was something deeper. Christ was present in the pain, bearing it with us. Not indifferent. Not untouched.

What is striking about both the poem and the song is that they do not attempt to explain suffering. They do not offer a theodicy. Instead, they assume relational presence as the answer. They do not argue; they testify. What they only begin to articulate and what Gifford presses further is mutual participation: the idea that pain is not merely observed or alleviated by God, but shared.

“Even when I didn’t know it or couldn’t see it, there was Jesus.”

That line has stayed with me. Presence is not contingent on awareness. Truth does not depend on perception. This resonates deeply with Paul’s language of “Christ in you,” with cognitive reframing grounded in truth rather than illusion, and with the conviction that God is not intermittently intervening, but constantly indwelling.  All of our pain, is His pain.

At the end of the other song, The Blessing, there is a clear echo of St. Patrick’s Breastplate—that ancient attempt to speak spatially about divine presence:

Before you, behind you, beside you, all around you and within you.

Those words landed differently for me that day. Christ was with us in our weeping. And more than that He was in us.

St. Patrick’s prayer is unmistakably perichoretic, even if did not use the term. This is not poetic flourish. It is ontological language, a claim about the structure of reality as lived in Christ. Christ is not localized. Christ is not merely external. Christ is not absorbed into the self. Distinction remains, yet presence is total. Mutual indwelling without collapse. This is classic perichoretic logic, lived rather than diagrammed.

What is equally striking about The Blessing is how explicitly it names spatial totality. It could sit comfortably in a theology text on Trinitarian participation. But it does not stop at space it names every human condition: weeping and rejoicing, coming and going, morning and evening. This is not poetic excess. It is a declaration that no human experience lies outside divine participation. Truly, Emanual, God with us.

Gifford makes this explicit when he writes:

“The promise of joint-heirship, in turn, depends on the believer’s willingness to suffer with Christ… This suffering, part of the believer’s experiential union with him, leads to the believer’s glorification with Christ… indicative of both shared sufferings now and a shared inheritance later.”

So yes, Christ is with us in suffering. That is not incidental, it is intentional.

This reminds me of how C. S. Lewis reached a similar realization in A Grief Observed, written after the death of his wife, Joy. In one of his most devastatingly honest lines, he writes:

“The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.”

It is almost unbearable in its clarity. The more we love, the more we suffer at loss. Love and grief are not opposites; they are bound together. Grief is not evidence that love failed, but that it was real.

This is why Jesus’ words ring differently when read through this lens:

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

My journey has been one of convergence. Gifford gave me the grammar. Scripture gave me the source. These poems, prayers, and songs gave me the felt sense. And the departure of a loved one, gave us the lived experience.

And somewhere along the way, this quiet truth settled in my bones: We never walk alone.

Notes

Footprints in the Sand

The author of the original Footprints in the Sand poem is Mary Stevenson. (1922 – 1999)

There are many versions, this is a modern one:

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord

Scenes from my life flashed across the sky,

In each, I noticed footprints in the sand.

Sometimes there were two sets of footprints;

other times there was only one.

During the lowest times of my life

I could see only one set of footprints,

so I said, “Lord, you promised me,

that you would walk with me always.

Why, when I have needed you most would you leave me?”

The Lord replied, “My precious child,

I love you and would never leave you.

The times when you have seen only one set of footprints,

it was then that I carried you.”

This poem is echoed in a popular song:

There Was Jesus

There Was Jesus

Every time I try to make it on my own

Every time I try to stand, I start to fall

And all those lonely roads that I have traveled on

There was Jesus

When the life I built came crashing to the ground

When the friends I had were nowhere to be found

I couldn’t see it then but I can see it now

There was Jesus

In the waiting, in the searching

In the healing, in the hurting

Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces

Every minute, every moment

Where I’ve been or where I’m going

Even when I didn’t know it

Or couldn’t see it

There was Jesus

For this man who needs amazing kind of grace

For forgiveness and a price I couldn’t pay

I’m not perfect so I thank God every day

There was Jesus

There was Jesus

In the waiting, in the searching

In the healing, in the hurting

Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces

Every minute, every moment

Where I’ve been or where I’m going

Even when I didn’t know it

Or couldn’t see it

There was Jesus

On the mountains

In the valleys

There was Jesus

In the shadows

Of the alleys

There was Jesus

In the fire, in the flood

There was Jesus

Always is and always was, oh

No, I never walk alone

No, no, ever, you’re always there

In the waiting, in the searching

In the healing, in the hurting

Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces

Every minute, every moment

Where I’ve been or where I’m going

Even when I didn’t know it

Or couldn’t see it

There was Jesus

There was Jesus

There was Jesus

There was Jesus

Songwriters: Jonathan Smith, Casey Beathard, Zach Williams. For non-commercial use only.

St Patrick’s Breastplate (Prayer)

Excerpt:

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise,

Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,

Christ in every eye that sees me,

Christ in every ear that hears me.

BTW: I created my own version to be spatially complete and include a 4th dimension.

Christ before me, Christ behind me,

Christ on my right, Christ on my left,

Christ beneath me, Christ above me,

Christ surround me, and Christ within me.

This is echoed in another song called the Blessing, specifically in the words:

The Blessing

The Lord bless you and keep you

Make His face shine upon you

And be gracious to you

The Lord turn His face toward you

And give you peace

The Lord bless you and keep you

Make His face shine upon you

And be gracious to you

The Lord turn His face toward you

And give you peace

Amen, amen, amen

Amen, amen, amen

The Lord bless you and keep you

Make His face shine upon you

And be gracious to you

The Lord turn His face toward you

And give you peace

Amen, amen, amen

Amen, amen, amen

May His favor be upon you

And a thousand generations

And your family and your children

And their children and their children

May His favor be upon you

And a thousand generations

And your family and your children

And their children and their children

May His favor be upon you

And a thousand generations

And your family and your children

And their children and their children

May His favor be upon you

And a thousand generations

And your family and your children

And their children and their children

May His presence go before you

And behind you and beside you

All around you and within you

He is with you, He is with you

In the morning, in the evening

And your coming and your going

And your weeping and rejoicing

He is for you, He is for you

He is for you, He is for you

He is for you, He is for you

He is for you, He is for you, woah

Amen, amen, amen

Amen, amen, amen

Songwriters: Christopher Joel Brown, Steven Furtick, Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes. For non-commercial use only.

Excerpt

What began as theological reflection suddenly became lived experience. Sitting in an ICU saying goodbye, I realized that what I had been writing about academically was now something we were inhabiting in real time. This post reflects on grief, love, and what it means to suffer in Christ rather than alone.