In Case You Forgot How Much God Loves You

When our son Luke was five years old he suffered a severe break in his right arm. While running through our sunroom, he tripped over a toy and landed awkwardly, instantly breaking his radius and ulna bones. I was about 30 minutes away driving to the hospital to visit an ailing church member. My wife was in another room in our house when she heard the bones snap. She somehow gathered up Luke and our infant son and put them in the van and got to the hospital. I received the call. I turned around. I did not stop until I joined them there.

The break was too bad to be dealt with in our local small town hospital. They put Luke in a sling and made an appointment that day at the bone and joint clinic 45 minutes away. He broke his arm at about 8:30 a.m. The appointment was not until that afternoon. We had to sit and watch him suffer while he waited. After an extra hour of waiting at the clinic for him to be seen, it was determined that he would be taken to the emergency room across the street. The doctor was going to give him some type of gas and attempt to maneuver his arm and reset it in place. They were trying to avoid surgery. So we gathered Luke up again and went across the street.

When we arrived the doctor told us we were going to have to leave while he dealt with our son’s arm. This manipulation was going to take skill and strength to accomplish and we didn’t need to see it and we didn’t need to be a distraction. So we walked about 50 feet away from his bed to the outside but open entrance to that part of the hospital. A few minutes later I heard his cries. “Daddy! Daddy! No! Stop hurting me! Stop doing that! Daddy! Daddy!” I cannot express it exactly; I can only say that to this point in my life those were the worst screams I had ever heard. I was about to break through that hospital and knock down anyone who stood between me and my innocent son. I was crying. I was in distress. I was hurt. I was helpless. The only thing that kept me from stopping the whole ordeal was the fact that I knew that this was the necessary thing to do.

After all of that, the bone-setting was unsuccessful. Luke had to be put into a room and later that evening, about 12 hours after he first broke his arm, his bones were finally reset under heavy manipulation while he was completely sedated. It was the hardest day my wife and I have ever experienced in our young lives.

Since that day, I have often thought about how much our Father in heaven loves us. He experienced a similar episode which was so much worse it is probably not right for the two to be compared. He allowed His innocent Son to suffer. He waited and watched it. When His Son cried out He did not stop the process. The difference is that the people who were hurting His Son were doing so maliciously, hatefully, and they were murdering Him in the most brutal fashion the world has ever known. But if the sin-sick world could ever be saved, the process was necessary. It was the only way that a world broken and displaced by sin could ever be straightened again and healed.

I will never understand why He didn’t instantly destroy the world and save His Son when He could have justly done so. But what I do understand is that heavenly love cannot be described by human words, whether by tongue or pen or any other method. The love our Father has for us resides high above any other love that exists. And it is a love that we can absolutely never do without.  Just in case you forgot…

“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!” – Romans 11:33

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