Twelve years old – some days young messiah, some days fully human boy. On the day our noisy jostling entourage returned home from the Passover festival, it hadn’t been immediately apparent my son was missing. Rushing back into the temple, I’d found him conversing with his betters. As if he belonged! Speaking with words I’d never heard him use, hands making circles in the air. My thoughts tumbled over themselves: What now? Let him go to bloom into what God has intended? Must love mean trusting God’s imagination?
That’s when Simeon’s words floated back into focus: ‘a sword will pierce your heart too.’ And it did.
This TGLS is inspired by the only Biblical mention of Jesus’ childhood, in Luke 2:40-52.
