49,551,703 (NRLC)

Yesterday, my wife and I happened to catch part of the TV show "Ghost Whisperer."  In this episode, Jennifer Love Hewitt's character was trying to help a family cope with the loss of their young daughter.  Before my wife and I had our first child (a beautiful little girl) just under two months ago, I never really thought about what it would really feel like for a parent to lose a child.  But last night it really hit me, how painful it must actually be.

As I often do (and have been doing much more lately), I had to reflect on how that human parent-child relationship is also seen in our child-parent relationship with God, because every relationship on earth is an image of a spiritual reality.

So what is it like for God to lose a child?  Does it matter that much to him?  I mean, after all, there are so many of us humans.  Well, Scripture tells us that it hurts him so bad that he decided to offer his only begotten Son (from all eternity) in exchange for us, his created sons and daughters.  A reasonable conclusion at this point, is that it pains God greatly to lose a child, even one.  Didn't Jesus tell a parable about leaving 99 sheep in order to search out one that was lost?

If the pain of losing one child can destroy lives and rip people apart emotionally, then how much worse is it for God?  And if losing one child is that bad, then how about losing more than 49,551,703 children before they even get to see the light of day?