I stood weeping in the emergenccy room of Children's Hospital in Chicago. Beyond a cold steel door, a doctor was trying to insert an intravenous needle into the uncooperative veins of my three-year-old son.

As the needle again pierced his little hand,, Justin's screams escaped his room, dashed through the vacant halls and shredded my heart.

Over and over again his hoarse little voice shrieked, "I want my Daddy... I want my Daddy! I stumbled blindly down the hall to escape my own torment, but I could still faintly hear Justin's screams. Finally, in desperation, I slipped outside, stood in the freezing night air, and wept.

It was Christmas Eve, the time Salvation Army officers just crash. I had wrapped up our corps responsibilities, jumped in the car and headed for Grandma's house with my wife. We were grateful for the quietness, the lack of pressure. We just wanted to get to Chicago and see our children, who had been staying with Grandma and Grandpa the last week before Christmas.

Arriving at suppertime, I was greeted with word that our son was ill. He had not been able to keep food or water down for a day and a half, and he was running a high fever. I made him swallow a few drops of warm 7-Up and held him in my arms. The soda didn't stay down either.

We bundled Justin in warm blankets and headed for the childern's hospital. The doctor confirmed our fears__Justin was dehydrated! The only way to treat him was by getting fluid into him intravenously.

Justin acted like "such a BIG Boy" as I held his hand while the nurses tried to insert a needle in his arm. His only sound was a quiet, "Ow-oo" whenever the nurse wiggled the needle back and forth.

After several unsuccessful attempts, the nurse tried the other arm. Each time the nurse would move the needle, Justin would look into my eyes to draw courage from me. For his sake I tried to smile proudly, but inside I only wanted to cry each time I saw him wince. I was thinking, "Nurse, if you can't do it, get someone who can! Stop torturing my son."

Finally, she gave up, and went to get the doctor. A third time they tried driving the needle into Justin's tiny arm. This time my son squealed and looked at the doctor fearfully. I gulped back tears of frustration as the doctor tried a fourth location, the side of Justin's foot. Once again, his little veins presented too small a target for the IV neddle.

As the doctor mumbled something about trying again in Justin's arm, I had to leave the room. I ended up outside, crying like a baby.

A doctor interrupted my thoughts to tell me that Justin was fine now and wanted to see me. I held my son in my lap as he devoured the popsicle the nurses had promised him once the IV was started. His arm was taped to a board and the IV tube dripped the critically needed fluids into his body, but he seemed not to notice.

I could not curb the tears, but Justin looked at me with complete trust in his eyes. "I love you more Daddy," he challenged, baiting me to play our favorite game which he always won with, "I love you mucher more than the w-h-o-l-e world!"

Days, months, even years later, I still cried when I remembered the agony my son went through. And I suppose my tears were due, in part, to the guilt I feel at not being at my son's side while he was screaming, "Daddy... I want my Daddy,"

It's not that I didn't want to be with him, but I had neither the physical nor emotional strength to stay with Justin and watch his suffering. Although my mind understood that the seemingly tortuous treatment was necessary, my heart could not stand to witness it.

One night as I recalled my son's ordeal, I found myself hoping that Justin's young memory would erase those scenes. As I dwelt on my love for my son, and the pain it caused me to see him suffer, I was suddenly stuck with the curious question, "Did God cry?"

If my love for my son is only a fraction of God's love for His son, and if God were to exhibit our mere human qualities, would He not have suffered a far greater torment than my own?

As Jesus was being beaten and whipped, then led up that hill dragging a heavy cross, did God choke back tears of sorrow? When the spikes were driven through Jesus' wrists and He screamed in agony, did The Father's eyes swell with hot tears? And as Jesus hung there thirsty, short of breath, racked with pain, did His Father weep? Did God consider rescuing His son from that apparently senseless torture?

When Jesus cried out from that cross, "Abba... Daddy..." and God had to turn His back on His Son, who for that moment represented all the sin of the world, did tears pour down God's face because of the anguish His only Son was enduring?

So how must it have hurt Him to give His Son Jesus to suffer as He did only for our sakes?

God's love for every person is so great that He allowed His only Son to bear horrendous pain, suffering His own anguish, so that if anyone would simply believe in Him, they would not endure eternal torment, but instead enjoy an everlasting life of peace with Him.