“Mommy, why is the world on fire?”

Her little face peeked out from behind my computer screen. Her eyes wide and searching. Her heart unaware of all that was going on around her.

I wanted to answer well.

But I fumbled and tripped over my own ignorance. Trying and failing to explain to my girl the pain and the hurt surrounding the last week. My words finally giving way to silence.

We sat there in the quiet for a long while until she hugged me and said in all her 5-year-old wisdom, “That makes me sad all over.”

And in that moment, in her words, I learned something about love.

Love doesn’t question why you hurt. Love doesn’t dismiss or explain away your pain. Love doesn’t leave you alone in the darkness.

Love stops and listens before it speaks. Love reaches out and holds you up. Love stands in the gap when it’s hard to breathe.

Because real love, His love holds your pain all the way to being sad all over.

Leaving you so irrevocably changed that you reach into the depth of His heart to rise up and say, “What hurts you hurts me.”