The Power of the Cross

When Emerald was four, she found a little digital camera, an old one that I had carried on vacation with us the previous summer to avoid lugging around my big camera. She has always loved looking at pictures, so she quickly figured out how to view all of the forgotten photographs on the little screen. She came into the kitchen occasionally to show me a funny picture she had found.

I was standing at the sink dealing with the remnants of the dinner dishes when she came back to me, holding the camera up for me to see a video of Sawyer playing on the beach. When she looked up at me I could see the tears about to spill over onto pink cheeks. “Mama, I miss that day,” she said, before the sobs came pouring out of her. Chad and I hugged her as we all watched the tiny screen and Sawyer’s carefree beach day antics. She cried, and I cried.

Because I know exactly how she felt. I could sit and sob for hours about all of the days that I miss.

All of the sweet moments. The hilarious, awkward, wacky experiences. The ordinary days that just felt especially peaceful. The big milestones. The unforgettable sayings and expressions of children who are growing up and away before my very eyes.

I could cry for all kinds of days that I miss.

A few days after Emerald cried about the vacation pictures, we gathered to remember just what is so good about Good Friday, and I turned to watch Sawyer take his very first swallow from the cup that represents the blood of his Savior. He couldn’t keep the grin off his proud little face as he gingerly held the grape juice, trying so hard not to spill it.

This dear little seven-year-old boy, who had recently told me that he would pray to God, asking for forgiveness as he ran his laps during P.E. class. This precious child who had hardly ever said a crossword to a soul. I watched him and contemplated how much I worry about him. I worried about him then, and I worry about him still. About the world that he’s growing up in. About how quickly a world as base and evil as this one can promptly chew up a teenage boy and spit him out. About how hard it will try to turn him into a man of no faith, no foundation, no wisdom, no peace.

But, on this day, on this good, good Friday I remembered that Christ died for Sawyer and for every ungodly thought he will ever think. He died for every bad decision, every wrong turn, every lie that Sawyer will ever fall for. I glanced back at him again, his freckles shining after an afternoon hunting Easter eggs with his second-grade class. And, the cross seemed even more real to me, knowing that it not only rescued me, but my little son.

Someday when I’m old and bent, I’ll remember how he looked there in the pew – my good little boy, sinner though he is, saved by grace, grinning on the other side of a little plastic communion cup. And, maybe I’ll turn to Chad with tears ready to spill onto worn cheeks and say, “I miss that day.”

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10