One of my children is fighting a cross. You know how that goes: it’s when you’re faced with an immense, painful, perhaps intractable problem, and your mind fixates on NO! Or it gets stuck on I can’t! (Which I suspect is the adult version of I don’t wanna!) And your prayers drop in the rut of get me out of this!
Being a mom, sometimes the closest I come to understanding the concept of taking on the sins of the world is that I’d gladly take on all the pain and suffering my children face. I’d suffer in their stead in a heartbeat. Fortunately that’s not allowed. My children have to learn to struggle, fall, rebound and grow to love God themselves. I can guide them (if they’re willing), but I can’t do it for them.
Frustrating as that is, the arrangement helps me grow, too. My kids’ struggles push me to my knees in prayer and turn my heart toward God. Their troubles help me think through the big issues of trust, perseverance, faith in the face of adversity. I’ve had to look for grace and light, for peace that does not rely on circumstances. And most of all I’ve had to cede control. Or at least the illusion that I ever had control.
All these things–except the pain–are good. Thinking from this perspective changes my prayers, shifting them away from prayers of protection to prayers of acceptance. Help my child see this problem as a cross, Lord, and guide her so that she accepts it, embraces it and carries it willingly. Amen.
