the joy that a child has been

Heard a beautiful song by Selah -- the track of the same name as the album. Lyrics in there that broke me, specifically one in the chorus. It goes:

Oh, Rose of Bethlehem
How lovely, pure and sweet
Born to glorify the Father
Born to wear the thorns for me

That last line hurts me to no end.

Fathers watch their children grow and can only think of their futures unseen. They think of the joys that await them, but also the trials that equally bide their time. They think about the ultimate end of their little ones, and in the darkest of nights, the direst imaginings are the ones that distract the mind the most.

And can you imagine Joseph? Can you imagine the shadowed imagining of his little one's unseen? And if he'd known that His destiny was to wear a wrong kind of crown, I imagine he would have picked up the little one from the manger and run for as long and as hard as his legs could have borne him. And longed to have run even further away. And Joseph's imaginings were all hypothetical.

But not God the Father's. Those futures were seen, and here He is laying His precious one in straw and knowing that wrong kind of crown was fitted already just for Him. And to lay Him still amidst that knowledge is the definition of senseless love, of love we will never understand. Love we will never deserve. Love we can only futilely attempt to repay in kind.