Friday, September 12, 2014

Thorns

I stopped before I reached the house to look towards the woods where the body laid with paramedics leaning over him, forcing breath into his lungs. I couldn't venture into the woods, my mind and heart set on his youngest sister waiting inside, my heart breaking into thousands of pieces.

But as I looked, my eyes beheld my husband gently scoop his mother into his arms like a fragile child to carry her through the waist high thorny shrubs to reach her grandchild laying there and her daughter standing, waiting, praying.

I am thankful I stopped for that brief moment.  For in so doing, I bore witness to a moment of beauty in the ugliest of times.  A son, tenderly bearing the pain of the thorns in his own exposed flesh, so she didn't have to.  I saw a glimpse of the tenderness of The Lord, a glimpse of Jesus himself bearing the pain of the thorns upon his brow, so I didn't have to.