Though I was a young, vulnerable mom, I still considered myself a strong woman of faith. But, it was still so difficult to see my baby girl and my baby boy suffer. I\u2019ve heard it said that \u201cIt\u2019s harder on the mom to watch her child suffer than the child suffering.\u201d I don\u2019t believe it for second, but sincerely, one of the hardest thing for a parent to do is watching their children hurt \u2013 for any reason \u2013 and whether they are young or older. I wished many times that I could haven taken their place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Christmas is almost here, I\u2019m drawn to the story of another mother who watched her child suffer. At our \u201cAdvent Meditations with Mary\u201d study this week, we talked about Mary\u2019s true grit as she endured watching her beloved Son suffer. Like most mothers, she loved and cared for her Baby Boy and 40-days after his birth, Joseph and Mary presented Jesus in the temple. Simeon prophesied to Mary \u201cAnd a sword will pierce through your own soul also\u201d (Luke 2:35). She was forewarned. In our group, we talked about how she must have carried those words with her all of her beloved Son\u2019s life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m grateful that my own son and I have a very close relationship. He has been an open book to me \u2013 telling me his innermost thoughts and feelings most all of his life. Even when he started dating, he couldn\u2019t wait to tell me about the date. As we talked in our discussion group, we envisioned that it was probably like that between Mary and her Boy. It was most likely that their relationship was intimate and endearing and He talked to her about His road up ahead. He prepared her. We suspect that she told Him that she would never leave Him no matter what the future looked like \u2013 and she didn\u2019t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When He was 33, Mary\u2019s Son hung on a rugged cross to bear the weight of humanity\u2019s sin. As He suffered, she never left His side. When He died, His body was placed in a tomb, and a large stone rolled over the opening. Three days later, the stone was rolled away and Jesus was no longer there. That day, a physical stone was rolled away from the mouth of a tomb, but so was the burden on a mother\u2019s tender heart. Scripture doesn\u2019t speak to it, but we moms just know that she had, literally, INSIDE information that she would see her Son again. And, she did and she does today. Her Son suffered but His life left an eternal impact on the world. Throughout Jesus\u2019 life, and even in His death, Mary stood close to Her son, but God drew even closer. And in our suffering, God draws even closer to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the months and years, as I loved and cared for my own children, I learned to replace fear with trust. I still do that today when I pray for them. To exchange uncertainty with truth that God\u2019s hand is over my children, in health, in peace, and still in times when I see them suffering in any way. Remembering God has a plan for them as He did with His own Son, I know God has a great plan for my children and me — even though I may not fully understand what that looks like. But He sure does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As this Christmas approaches, we will praise and worship God for His great gift to Joseph and Mary and to all of us. We will worship this precious Baby in the manger — but the story gets so much better. Simeon had a painful message for Mary. But she discovered that for those who trust God, He uses soul-piercing events to unleash more grace, salvation, and joy into the world than we could have ever imagined. We know the massive stone of fear was rolled away, revealing our Savior lives, and because He lives \u2013 SO DO WE! Praise God forevermore! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Though I was a young, vulnerable mom, I still considered myself a strong woman of faith. But, it was still so difficult to see my baby girl and my baby boy suffer. I\u2019ve heard it said that \u201cIt\u2019s harder on the mom to watch her child suffer than the child suffering.\u201d I don\u2019t believe it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15898,15897,14677,15896],"tags":[15894,1210,15891,1375,323,41,6840,14108,15890,15157,15893,15889,15892,15888,15895,545],"class_list":["post-11591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gods-plan","category-stone-rolled-away","category-suffering","category-sword-will-pierce","tag-advent-meditations","tag-blog","tag-close-relationship","tag-fear","tag-grace","tag-joy","tag-luke-235","tag-mypeacezone-com","tag-rugged-corss","tag-salvation","tag-simeon","tag-stone-rolled-away","tag-strong-woman-of-faith","tag-suffer","tag-sword-will-pierce","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11591"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11594,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11591\/revisions\/11594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}