NO GREATER LOVE

Watching the suffering of your children is always worse than enduring your own.

Always.

I wish that I could protect my children from everything.

I want to shield them from all the dark terrors that stalk a fallen world.

I want to fold their fears into my own heart.

I want to absorb their agony like a sponge.

Let me carry those doubts for you, they are too heavy for mortals.

Load your bewilderment upon me and wear my certainty as armor.

Do not tremble, I will shake for you.

The darkness is empty; it cannot harm you.

And I will give myself to any monsters that come for you.

I want to eat their pain.

My soul has been shattered already.

There is no need for theirs to be broken or even bruised.

Let me cry their tears.

Let me bleed their blood.

Break me, not them.

I can take it.

Bury me in the ground.

Just let them go free.

Is this how God feels as He watches us?

Does no greater love mean no greater pain?

Is it any wonder that His own emptying is the lynchpin of His children’s history?

“The mystery of the cross,” some call it.

Not very mysterious to me.