I’m holding my sleeping baby, covering his body with my tears. He’s perfect and so, so sweet and I don’t want to hurt him. It’s twisting my heart with the worst ache. I think about the family I was born into and all the pain we never anticipated, all the pain roped through our love like livid scars we can’t ignore. There are open wounds still seeping that I don’t have the power to sew up. Maybe they’ll never be healed. Maybe I’ll always hurt for what we were, what we’ve become, and what we’ll never be.
But then I think of Mary, perfect, and her Son, perfect. Even they couldn’t escape pain, the worst pain. She parented him perfectly, and yet she could not stop the world from hurting him. There’s a comfort in that, knowing this is just how it is. This is the human experience on this side of eternity. As soon as we find our peace with that, we find our hope in the life to come. She’s with me, all the way, and I’m crying the tears she cried for her own Son.
The twisting in my heart eases a little. I lay my baby in his bed, knowing I have tomorrow to love him, and an eternity to be free from pain.