Pavement and Pain

Tonight as my family took a walk together, the girls on scooters, and us by foot. We strolled and laughed as I remembered former walks down this same path with much smaller girls. Memories of sidewalk chalk and popsicles in summertime air and being bundled up with frosty breath in the winter lingered in my mind of our mileage down our favorite path. And just as my oldest became more confident on the scooter she fell. I watched the entire accident wishing that I had fallen instead. I wanted to break her fall, not bandage her wounds because that is what love does. Love makes you want to take the pain so they don’t have to hurt, bleed, and cry. Love makes you want to be the cushion and not the pavement. Love makes you want to lessen the blow by rushing out to buy the perfect size band-aid.

I think about wounds far worse.

“He was wounded for our transgressions.”

“He was bruised for our iniquity.” (Is 53:5 KJV)

As I ponder shades of blue that run deep with a sinless life.

I whisper, “This is what love does… for me.”

Love wrapped Himself up in death so that I might live. Deep within me I know that there are moments that I am not living life in the abundance that Christ purchased for me. Why not? It’s paid for in full, it’s a done deal. How could I not walk in prosperity of soul when I have this assurance; the God of all creation sent His perfect son to buy my pardon and He has scars to prove it.

Jesus has scars.

And by His stripes we are healed.

The inner scars that no one else sees, He cradles it in His hands as He longs to be the cushion instead of the pavement that painfully took our breath away. Sometimes we see the fall coming and there is nothing that we can do except brace ourselves knowing that God will be there to kiss our wounds.

Your marriage might be your pavement right now with cracks and potholes so big that you feel like you can no longer travel down it. Your grownup children making poor decisions might be your pavement, you might feel like you are watching them fall in slow motion and there is nothing that you can do but call on the name of Jesus.

So, I say to your pavement scars, with scars of my own, that by His stripes we are healed. Only He can make your mess a masterpiece. I can’t tell you how He does it; I just know that He does.

"I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10)

Lord,
I don't want to waste any more time on pavement, I want to live that abundant life that you have purchased for me. Heal my wounds and turn my eyes off of the payment and fix them on You!

Amen.