Sitting perfectly still, I realized I was holding my breath as I studied my daughter’s feet carefully.

She was laid back in the reclining chair in a dark exam room. The protective goggles I was wearing made everything orange and darker. They were to protect my eyes as I looked on but she had no protection I thought. I was watching her feet for movement, for any squirming signs of discomfort as the doctor told her where to look while he aimed the laser into her eye. 

She sat perfectly still and followed his commands despite the discomfort she was feeling. She uncrossed her feet and shifted oh so imperceptibly. 

My mind bounced back to the nurse who’d prepared her for this moment. She told a terrible story of her own excruciating pain during the same procedure. Somehow she was trying to help, to relate. She followed with an intended comfort in that it wasn’t this doctor doing the procedure. Perhaps it isn’t the comforting story she thought it would be I frantically mused as I’d stared at her wide-eyed trying to develop some mind power that could get into her brain to tell her to stop talking. 

The small, intermittent sound of the laser continued on in the dark room and brought me back.

She was hurting. Exhaling, I hoped no one could see the tears building in the corners of my own eyes. I had to keep a brave face—she needed to know all would be okay. It would be, I told myself and tried to use my imagined mind powers to tell her the same.

My eyes ached. I wish I were one of those strong and stoic people who said things like, “I wish I could take your place, take the pain for you.” But I’m not and I don’t. 

Instead I pray.

You would think after 29 years as a parent, I’d have developed a thicker skin. Some kind of defense system should’ve built up by now to keep these moments from feeling so tender and raw. Instead it feels as if the reverse were true. The skin has become thinner, as with age. The sensitivity has only increased. Their aches echo in my own body. Their anxieties grab hold and weaken my resolve. Sometimes I think I can’t handle it; I have to turn away.

My 25-year-old daughter three states over has oral surgery approaching and she said she is worried she won’t wake up. My mouth aches as I assure her she will and the cold, clammy feeling of the unknown envelops my own mind. 

I think of my own parents and what they have endured through all their years of parenting. The anniversary of my younger brother’s death is this week. It is a trial I have endured as a sibling, but not as a parent. 

It makes me stop short and catch my breath trying to imagine that kind of hurt.

Only God knows.

One life is enough to muddle through, trying to aid these other five humans is impossible. But I will do what I can when I can to encourage, comfort, console as long as I am able.

Like so many life lessons learned by God’s grace of having children, I think of God watching his own child suffer. Did He lean in and look for the evidence of his excruciating pain at the hands of his own creation? Did He want to scream out “STOP!” to the people wagging their tongues and taunting His son, beating him mercilessly.

He knew the hurt He would suffer and He let him go through it anyway.

He felt every excruciating second.

It staggers the mind. The goal—even more difficult to comprehend. He was making a way for us to become his children as well. That painful path of suffering, and even death, became the narrow way to our Father’s very heart. He created an opening, tearing that veil.

There is no comprehending or understanding His ability to do this for every one of his precious chosen. Yet these moments of watching and waiting with my children has become one more gift that He has given so that I might better understand what is his steadfast and unyielding love for me, yes me! 

It is a hard earned lesson.

He is not overburdened by the details of our hearts and minds as we cry out in pain, anxiety, worry, worship, joy, celebration. The thought that He intently tunes in and lets our concerns touch him so deeply is one I am learning to revel in. 

I know my children intimately, but I can’t tell you the number of hairs on their heads.

I can predict how they will react in certain circumstances, but I did not design them or their circumstances for their own good.

I can give them what I think will be of most use and encouragement, but I have not given them all that I am.

I am able to walk with them some of the time, but not all of the time.

The result of Jesus’ suffering is the deep and abiding care of the Parent we all need. He never loses focus. He never abandons or forsakes us. And He took the pain for us.

He never grows weary of hearing from us.

Though we will have to continue through our own hurts and disappointments on this side of eternity, our rest comes in knowing He has made a way home.