WHAT YOU LEAVE AT THE CROSS
This cross is in my backyard. Not for design. Not for effect. It was built in a season I should not have survived — West Nile, then a widow-maker. By every medical account… I shouldn’t be here. I can assure you — it was a miracle. But the body healing wasn’t the end of it. It was the beginning of something else.
Some things don’t need managing.
They need burying.
The body healed.
The man hadn’t.
DEDICATION
To Marty — who asked the question that made me name what I had already chosen.
To the brother who came to the cross with me, and stayed face-down beside me until something broke.
To the dear friend whose final days made me face the rest of mine.
To Jesus — who met me before I knew what to ask, and finished what I could not.
SCRIPTURE
L“So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished!’ And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.” — John 19:30 (NKJV)
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” — Galatians 2:20 (NKJV)
THE HOOK
The brother lay face-down at the foot of the cross.
I lay beside him.
Forty-five minutes.
No words for most of it.
Not silence — weight.
Surrender taking up the space your pride used to fill.
When I got up, something had been left behind.
THE STORY
I had already survived what I shouldn’t have survived.
West Nile. Then the widow-maker. Three stents.
A heart that quit on me — and a God who didn’t.
By every medical chart, I was supposed to be a number.
I’m not.
That’s not a metaphor. That’s a fact I live with every morning.
But healing the body isn’t the same as healing the man.
I had a dream around that time. Simple. Clear.
I had died.
And the last thing I would do was build a cross.
So I built it.
I built it in my backyard — where I would see it every day.
Not as decoration. As a marker.
Around it, benches.
I spent hours there. Not casually. Uncovering everything I could remember.
Every agreement I had made with the wrong voice.
Every failure I had filed and forgotten.
Every place I had justified.
I brought it all up.
At the same time, I was walking through something I wasn’t prepared for.
My companion dog, Whisper, was dying of cancer.
She wasn’t just a dog.
She was close to me in a way only a few things in life ever are.
Watching something that loyal… that present… that constant… fade in front of you —
it does something to a man.
It stripped the noise.
It pulled everything real to the surface.
Life. Loss. Time.
What matters… and what doesn’t.
Marty knew something was happening.
She didn’t know everything.
But she saw the cross.
She saw the hours.
She knew.
A few days before what came next, I told her:
“I made a covenant with Jesus.”
She said:
“Do you understand the responsibility that comes with that?”
I said yes.
Because I did.
THE MOMENT
Then a brother came over. A man of deep faith.
We went to the cross.
And we stayed.
Forty-five minutes.
Face down.
At the foot of it.
And right there — I gave it all up.
Not part of it.
All of it.
Because the cross is not just where things end.
It’s where the exchange happens.
His heart… for mine.
Not partial.
Not managed.
Full.
He didn’t just take what I brought.
He replaced it.
You don’t leave with the box.
He didn’t just take what I brought.
He replaced it.
THE TURN
Days later, I asked God:
What’s next?
It came fast.
Opportunity. Direction. Movement.
Like something launched the moment I was emptied.
Then came another dream.
I asked Him:
Am I going to die?
The answer came back clear.
Yes.
…
You already did.
THE DRIFT
The drift voice sounds reasonable. Almost wise.
“I’ve worked through it.”
“I’ve forgiven them.”
“I keep it where I can see it — so I never forget.”
That’s not bondage.
That’s growth.
I knelt beside that box for years and called it healing.
THE REFLECTION
Burial is different than management.
Management keeps the box close.
You sort it.
You label it.
You revisit it.
You tell yourself you’re being honest because you can still name everything inside it.
Burial doesn’t argue with the box.
Burial digs.
There is no partial burial.
You don’t keep a portion of what’s killing you and call it freedom.
The cross does not negotiate terms.
It completes them.
Anything not surrendered…
is still being carried.
What I left at the foot of the cross wasn’t a feeling.
It was a freight load I had been carrying for years.
Anger I had nursed toward my father.
Bitterness I had carried toward my grandfather.
Betrayal I had learned by heart.
Fear I had named so often it had become furniture.
I dug.
And I left it.
The cross isn’t a place you visit to manage your wounds.
It’s where the man who carried them dies —
and a different man walks back to the house.
I remember thinking, when it was done:
It’s finished.
Not the cross.
Me.
Not improved.
Replaced.
WALKAWAY LINE
You don’t leave the cross carrying less. You leave it carrying different.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
What are you still carrying that the cross is waiting to bury?
MY PRAYER
Heavenly Father,
I thank You for the cross — not as a symbol, but as a place.
A place where the man I was can be left, and the man You’re calling me to be can rise.
Search me.
Show me what I am still managing instead of burying.
Give me the courage to dig the hole.
Give me the strength to walk back to the house without it.
Let what is finished, stay finished.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
ABOUT G~
G~ writes from lived experience — exploring identity, authority, and time through the lens of faith, trial, leadership, and surrender. His reflections are not meant to condemn or hype, but to steady. Rooted in covenant, forged through adversity, and anchored under the authority of Jesus Christ, his work invites readers to examine who governs their lives — and to live intentionally under truth.
If what you’ve read resonates with your journey, feel free to reach out.
G~