the playhouse.

It's every toddler's dream come true.  A playhouse, a wooden swing set, a pink car you can really drive.  And people everywhere--children running and screaming, adults chatting and relaxing together on the lawn.  The playhouse is crawling with half a dozen busy toddlers.  They open doors, pretend to make food in the kitchen, scoop the gravel together to make little piles (sometimes with the intention of chucking those piles at unsuspecting victims).

Except one toddler in particular.

He is standing outside the gravel, dancing back and forth, fists clenched, mouth agape, delighting in the scene before him but not daring to join the fun.  Three things hinder him.  The wooden barrier is too tall to step over, the gravel is too slippery to walk in, and the other children are too quick and confident in their movements.

It is enough to break his mama's heart.

She and husband have spent the evening scooping him up from nasty spills, bandaid-ing scrapes from an encounter with the wooden swingset, blushing every time a familiar, piercing wail interrupts the party approximately every two minutes.

And he has spent the evening watching his peers magically command their bodies to go where they want to go--bending and climbing, stepping over and around.  And wishing he had this dreamland all to himself so that he could take some time to figure out how. to.do. that.

He is frustrated.  And she is frustrated.  Not mostly because she is weary of his crying (although there is that too) but because she is weary of watching her son look on.

And now, basking in the quiet of sleeping children, she remembers that the Lord sees her son's pain.  And he understands, because he has seen his own Son's pain.  And she chooses to trust the One who can erase all pain.  Not just in this life, but in the next.