When Your Child Is In Pain

I have felt protective of many kids over the years. I won't count them, you'll just have to trust me. I find though, that the 'Mama Bear' instinct comes out just a little stronger when it comes to my own child.

When she is sick, I want to be sick for her so that she doesn't have to suffer, and when she gets hurt, I wish mommy's kiss could still make it all better immediately. I yearn to protect her from the most terrible and degenerate things in this world and want to cry for every bit of innocence that she loses because it always seems too soon.

I think about this especially today because it is Good Friday. Today is the day we Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death.

Imagine this:
You live in a wonderful place where there is no sickness or death or pain, but there are people that you love who live in a hard place and cannot get to you. So, being unable to go yourself, you send your child to lead them to you.

You watch as your child is embraced by some, but turned away by others. Some of the very people, that you love, that you sent your child into this harsh land for, refuse to listen. Then, they hurt, mock, degrade and kill your child in the most painful way they can.

At any moment you could wisk this precious child out of there... But you don't. You know and your child knows that through his death all the people you love will be able to come to the wonderful utopia that is your home. So you sit there and allow preventable pain to overcome your only child and for him to spend several days in Hell.

What kind of love would you have to have for these horrible people to contain the 'Mama Bear' instinct?

I cannot even imagine that kind of love.

Today, I spend some time in awe of love that can be that great and pray that someday I might comprehend it's magnitude.