Every Wednesday of Easter Week is special to me. In the Divine Mercy Novena, this day is dedicated to humble souls, and to the souls of little children.
Little children.
They send all of heaven into ecstasy, the prayer tells us. They are the Heavenly Father's favorites.
I wasn't thinking of this on Easter Wednesday, 2007. I simply broke down in tears over my tiny little daughter, in the hospital, so many months, with no end in sight, facing--possibly --more surgery.
"God, please save my little girl."
I didn't realize that it was her special day in the heart of God. I didn't reflect on the love Jesus has for the little children, on the special place they have in His suffering heart as He opens His arms on the Cross.
There is no way to explain the suffering of little children. And there are so many who suffer. The world groans with the suffering of little children.
God became man and suffered with them. This is a place where no words can be said. But we know by faith that God is present in this place, with His little children. He accompanies each of them; He shed every drop of His own blood to give His love to each one of them. This is not an explanation. This is a fact.
God was carrying the little girl he loved on that day. And He carried me--lost, powerless, and pleading for His help--He saw in me the little child that I have never ceased to be in His eyes.
Meanwhile, even as I shed tears of grief and exhaustion, the doctors were changing their minds. Josefina didn't need the surgery, they decided. It was time for her to go home.
Many children never go home. Many fathers shed tears that seem to be in vain. But God has seen and borne them all, not from some distant throne, but in a human heart that shed blood and water, that emptied itself so that it might encompass everything.
Since that day, I have grown four years younger, and Josefina has grown four years older. She is still a little child. And I am growing closer to being the child that God sees in me. This is my hope.
