Are You a Soldier?

I was standing in the kitchen ... no lights ... dark ... talking to my nearly 16 year old son. Talking about Passion ... Passion of the Christ. He had just come home from youth group where they had watched Passion. He'd seen it before and knows the story. He's in church nearly every Sunday, at youth group on Sunday nights and youth events scattered in between school days and Sundays. But something was different on this night.

He always has questions ... about everything ... movies, music, my day at work, his dad's workout at the Y ... everything. But, on this night ... the questions were ones I had not planned for. Ones I needed to slow down and think about.

"Mom is the scene with the crow or black bird biblical?", "What do you think the meaning is of the child Satan holds during Christ's beating?" ... and so many others. I slowed down from the pace of laundry and dishes. We stood in the kitchen leaning against the counter, covered in the darkness of a late March night.

I answered his questions. He told me his thoughts. Then, he asked me about the soldiers. The ones sitting at the foot of the cross as Christ died. In the Passion, those soldiers cast lots for Christ's belongings. They laugh and wipe Christ's blood from their faces. This touched my son ...

"Mom, when I saw that, I thought maybe we're like that sometimes. Like those soldiers."

"In what way?" I ask, arms wrapped around my fuzzy bathrobe.

"We sit at the foot of the cross and we laugh. We take His death and the reason for granted. We do things we know we shouldn't and take His forgiveness and the price of it for granted." Hands stuffed in his jeans pockets as he lets me see a little bit of the work God is doing on his heart.

"Wow, I've thought about how we take it for granted but never that I might be like one of those soldiers."

We talked a little more and then I let him go to his room to think. I've learned with having three boys ... they aren't as emotional and sharing as us girls. So, I take the moments like that night and tuck them away in my heart.

He's right ... we are sometimes like the soldiers.

I am sometimes like the soldiers.

I take His sacrifice for granted. I make poor choices without even thinking about how it hurts Him. I sit at the foot of the cross ... the place where forgiveness is free ... I sin and come to the cross ... the forgiveness is always there and I take it.

He gives it.

And, today ... I am grateful. I am at the foot of the cross as one who aches over the sacrifice of her Savior.