Hold me in my pain

I just experienced a hard and beautiful lesson through my son, one of many to come I am sure…

We all know that giving our babies and children their immunization shots is for their best, it keeps them safe from far greater dangers than the shot itself, but this doesn’t make it any easier for them while it happens or the resulting pain they feel…

Ashton woke up from a nap because he was hungry, as he usually does. I began feeding him and when I reached for something a must have leaned in on the muscle that had been injected earlier today. He began to cry that cry that is just “pain”. There is no fix for it, its not like the hungry cry, the wet cry, the I need to burp cry, or I am just fussy cry, its the “I HURT” pain that is so sad. There was nothing I could do for him, but hold him, hold him tight. His little face was so sad and it was one of those parent moments that I have always heard of but have never experienced until now. I held him as tight as I could and I just cried with him. Here I have ultimately caused this pain, or allowed it to happen, and he doesn’t understand, all he knows is that it hurts…bad.

I was overwhelmed in the moment in how the Lord loves us the same. That there are those times that God allows the pain in our lives, sometimes because its what is best for us, even when we don’t understand. And sometimes there are just painful things in our lives in which He does not instantly make better, there are no quick fixes, all He does is hold us tight and cry with us. In my love for Ashton in that moment I cried because he cried, not because I was sorry I had allowed him to have these shots, but because he was hurting..and that was all. How can I as a human parent love in his pain that way and our Lord not love us the same.

And I think of the many who are currently hurting through pains and tragedies that the Lord certainly knows about and has ultimately allowed in the lives of those who love Him, and in all the private moments of desperation where it just hurts in that part of your heart that no one but the Lord could ever know or touch..He cries with them, with me, with us…because He loves us like that. The moments of brokenness on the floor clinging to hope he holds us as tight as He can, whispers that He loves us and cries with us. And for moments when it feels a little better, He keeps holding, because soon its back, the excruciating pain with no remedy. This is not the pain that can be easily remedied, there are no easy answers, there are no quick fixes, there are no words that can bring true comfort…only being held by the one that loves us more than anything. He knows the big picture, He sees the things that we do not, and most of all…He cares. We can trust Him.

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