The loss of a child

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . . .

This passage and song lyric have always gripped me to the core. So when I heard it last Shabbat at services, as the punctuation of the thoughts I’d been pondering during the week, the picture became complete. . .

The loss of a child –

I actually can’t imagine anything worse. Although, thank God, I have not had this personal experience, it has been in my life through such a horrific experience of close loved ones. This includes the heartbreak of miscarriages. There is no parent I know who would not lay down his or her life for their child for this love is one beyond bounds of human comprehension. No matter the age of the child, grown or infant, this inexplicable bond manifests in divine proportion.

This deep unfettered, unconditional love is often in other relationships as well, even can be with a beloved cat or dog, niece or nephew, other bond of a nurturer with one dependent for his or her development on the giver, opportunites given us to experience the gift of co-creation.

When our Abba so loved the world that He gave to us His Son and allowed Him to die for us, He through that enfleshment experienced with us the pain we feel upon the loss of one given to us to so cherish. As we then know He knows that pain too, and ponder that He did that intentionally for humanity, we can viscerally understand how profound is the depth of His love for us. By making Yeshua’s sacrifice a reality and not just words to us, our Divine Father brought redemption to mankind. And to give us just the slightest ability to comprehend such an incomprehensible act, we relate as we know the deepest despair when a beloved child passes.

Yet the story does not end there. Yeshua resurrected and we, too, take heart in knowing this realm is just one part of the eternal story. Those we have lost, and all of us for that matter, will be with Him.

We read in Scripture of HaShem’s turning away from us for our disobedience, but we also read of the pain when He feels we are lost. We are his children and as we make choices that are not what He wants of us, in a spiritual sense, it is as a death, one painfully not what He has chosen for us. Thankfully His love is unending and He continually allows us to try again, breathing life time and again into the dry bones.

As the month of Elul deepens, I encourage you to turn back to Him, to return to the good He has placed in each of us. May we look toward our days of rebirth in Him, redeemed, and renewed in a life filled with the Ruach.

Shabbat shalom.
Diane

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