The minute I set eyes on my firstborn, I felt that fear...that pain of imagined loss. Until I was a mother, I didn't have an inkling of the kind of fear a parent lives with every day - the death of your child. But it is born along with your baby and you carry it with you long after that baby grows and ventures away from the safety of your arms.
A friend's son died this morning. It was supposed to be a happy day...a Father's Day spent together, celebrating the love between this father and his son. This was a father who was devoted to his kids, who would have given his own life in a heartbeat for any of them. In the end, there was nothing he could do. And that's another curse of parenthood - that helpless feeling when you realize there are limits to what you can do for your kids; there are just some things that are out of your control.
The heartbreak I feel for this man is just a splinter of what he's feeling, I'm sure. I've been lifting him and his family in prayer all day, and I'll continue to do so - praying for peace, for acceptance, for strength...although just as the pain they feel is unimaginable to me, so is the idea that it would be a pain that could ever heal. But I also know that with God, all things are possible. Please join me in praying for them.
"My strength and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalm 73:26
