So Loved

A child plays on the banks of a mountain stream.
He slips, falls into the icy current.
His mother's heart falls also—crashes—yet leaps,
with a parent's deep love-panic.
She rushes down the bank, out into the water.
Of course she will endure the rocks, the cold, the danger,
she will grab her child and bring him to safety.
She doesn't care how disobedient he was to go there.
She doesn't care that he told her he hated her.
Doesn't care he ruined the couch yesterday,
woke her three times last night, and is going to need braces.
Without reserve she plunges in and holds him tight.
Of course. Because she loves him no matter what.
This is how God so loved the world,
not in sending a rep, not in working a deal,
but by rushing down, diving into the pain,
saving us from ourselves, and holding us
without judgment or condemnation
because she will never abandon her flesh and blood,
never.

 

Steve Garnass-Holmes, unfoldinglight.net March 2, 2023