The Importance of Suffering

My mom and I had four more months together where we loved each other unconditionally and fully. God restored much to us in those months. She would gladly have borne it herself and spared me the sorrow, spared me the pain of bearing her pain, her loss. My mother's heart is a vast and glorious thing. Having been enlarged by suffering in years of clinging to Jesus while being misunderstood, dismissed and judged by those she loved most. A woman bleeds when she gives birth, but that is only the beginning of the bleeding. All a mother prays and works and hopes for on her child's behalf bleeds too.