Yesterday, Brent came home from Home Depot with a gift for the kids: three beautiful big orange balloons.  While David and Charlotte were excited to have them, Laura was ecstatic.  She thought it was the most wonderful gift ever.  And she decided to go outside to run up and down the sidewalk with her new balloon, showing it off to her neighborhood friends.  As she went out the door, we cautioned her to hold on tightly to the string, it would fly away if she let it go, and she gripped the string between her little fingers.

A few minutes later, Laura came sobbing in the door, still gripping the string in her hand.  The string had come untied from the balloon and it had floated off into the sky.  She was crushed!  Gently, I said, "Daddy has something else to give you and it is worth way more than a balloon."  Laura looked up at me expectantly.  "Daddy can hold you in his arms and love on you."

He held her for more than five minutes.  And as they held each other, I though of what I had just read a few days earlier about a child getting hurt:

"The child can rebel against his hurt.  He can throw himself on the floor; he can kick the piece of furniture on which he hurt himself; he can strike out at his mother who is trying to help him.  But then he suffers even more, for his pain remains and now he has to be in it alone -- alone with his frustration.

If he loves his mother, he goes beyond his pain and throws himself into her arms.  She does not take the hurt away, but in holding her child, she bears the hurt with him.

In precisely the same way, we can choose in our pain an attitude that further separates us from the Father or that draws us closer to him.  It all depends on the outer posture of our hands and the inner posture of our hearts."

Brent wasn't making the balloon come back, but he was "bearing the hurt with her".  I had had a few days where things felt difficult, too.  One of our potential donors (one whom we expected to be a match) is not a match.  The dialysis schedule can be weary and keeps us from doing things we want to do and being with friends.  But I sensed God saying to me that he wants to bear the hurt with me, too.  That He holds me like Brent holds Laura and He wants to draw us closer to Him. 

After Laura spent her time being held by her Daddy, she responded out of love by writing him this note:

She lost her balloon, but she was able to receive her Daddy's love.  Then she was able to respond back to him in love, too.  I want to be like that.