08/16/2026
I have often said that one of the hardest parts about being a parent is when our children begin to have boo boos that we can no longer kiss and make better.
When they're little, they fall down and scrape a knee, bump their head, or come running to us in tears, and somehow Mommy or Daddy can make almost everything better. A kiss, a hug, a Band-Aid, maybe a little ice cream...and before long they're running around again.
But eventually the wounds change.
And I recognize that for some parents this happens terribly early, through an illness, a diagnosis, or an accident. But for many of us, it happens gradually as our children begin to make their way into the world. The first heartbreak. Getting cut from the team. A failing grade. Losing a friendship.
Suddenly we discover that there are hurts we cannot fix, which is an incredibly painful revelation. We can listen. We can encourage them. We can hold them. We can remind them how deeply they are loved.
But we cannot take the pain away.
And then our children become adults, and sometimes parents themselves, and somehow it becomes even harder. We watch people we love more than almost anything in this world struggle with finances, relationships, disappointment, anxiety, depression, uncertainty, and all the pressures of an increasingly complicated world.
And perhaps one of the hardest lessons of parenthood is realizing that our children never outgrow their need for our love, but they eventually outgrow our ability to fix what hurts them.
We can love them through whatever they face.
But we cannot face it for them.
And I wonder if that experience doesn't teach us something important about the limits of human love. Because there comes a point in every relationship when love runs up against something it simply cannot fix.
We can sit beside someone in a hospital room, but we cannot make the diagnosis disappear. We can hold the hand of someone whose heart has been broken, but we cannot undo what happened. We can walk beside someone through grief, but we cannot give them back the person they lost. We can love deeply, faithfully, sacrificially, and still find ourselves powerless before some of the hardest things in life.
And that is where our Christian faith comes in.
The God we worship is not simply a God who stands beside us and offers soothing words. He enters the wound. He enters the heartbreak. He enters the suffering. He enters even death itself.
In Jesus Christ, God does not remain safely removed from the pain of His children. He steps directly into it.
And Christianity does not promise that God will keep us from every scraped knee, every broken heart, every diagnosis, every disappointment, or every grave.
Our faith promises something better...that there is no suffering into which God will not go with us. No darkness in which He cannot find us. No wound beyond His ability to redeem. And no grave that gets the final word.
Sooner or later, all of us discover that there are things we cannot fix. Things our parents cannot fix. Things our spouses cannot fix. Things our friends cannot fix. Things we cannot fix for ourselves.
And worship reminds us that we belong to Someone whose love is greater than our helplessness. A God who does not merely love us from a distance, but who entered our world, carried our suffering, bore our sin, conquered death, and promises that one day He really will make all things new.
So wherever life has wounded you this week, wherever you have discovered the limits of your own strength, wherever you are carrying something you cannot make better...you are invited.
This morning at 10:30, we will gather for worship. We sure hope to see you here.
