"Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." Psalm 103:13
As I pray for the current, ongoing sufferings of our firstborn, Carissa, and the prospects that seem so terribly bleak to us right now of MCAS as a daily reality for the rest of her life . . . And as I pray daily for her two living siblings, with trials of their own as they still grieve the traumatic loss of their beloved little brother . . . And even as I think of what all may have troubled the mind of my son, Levi, to lead him to the radical choice he made almost two years ago . . .
This incredible verse is ever at the forefront of my mind, and has been the basis of my most earnest beseechings to God.
Our Lord has the original, foundational, quintessential monopoly on a "father's heart!" He knows more of what it means to stand by "helplessly" (I say that with utmost reverence) and watch the excruciatingly intense sufferings of His beloved child than I ever could in a thousand lifetimes.
"Pity," according to Webster's 1828 "American Dictionary of the English Language," means "To feel compassion or fellow-suffering for one in distress; the feeling or suffering of one person, excited by the distresses of another; to have tender feelings for one, excited by his or her unhappiness."
The pity I have for my children is among the very strongest and most inexpressable feelings I have ever, ever known, or want to know.
It is captured dramatically in the father of a young man whose hopes of certain stardom in professional football have just been forever dashed by a shattered knee. The dad leans over his agonized son in his hospital bed and kisses him, saying, "You know I would take this for you if I could, son."
I believe I would take this for her, if only I could. I believe I would have "taken it" for Levi, though I can't say I even know what "it" was.
The Only-Begotten DID come, and "took it" for me.
That, my friends, is the heart of a father.
“Like as a father pitieth his children . . .”
I count daily on the certainty that, if even my heart knows this pity, His surely knows so much better than mine.