Its 11:30am on a Sunday morning and I am almost at the end of my shift when I rotate to guard the Therapy pool. I watch as a father tenderly readies his daughter for an aqua therapy session. This is not your simple kicking off of the baby Crocs and away she goes to her lesson. This is a ritual of unconditional love, of sacrifice, of so-beautiful-it-hurts, for this daughter is entirely paralyzed and quite possibly is mentally incapacitated.

I watch in awe as this father carries his daughter into the water and cradles her moving her limbs to flex their muscles and circulate the blood. I watch in wonder as he tenderly wipes the water drops from her face, as he shields her eyes from the sun, as he kisses her face cooing tender words of love. I am thankful for my mirror-finished sunglasses which hid my tearing eyes. I am struck by how many fathers I see bringing their broken children to sessions in this pool—many are autistic, some are physically disabled, some mentally, some both. There are mothers too, but more often I see the fathers in the water working so faithfully with their children, praising them for what seems like the most insignificant replication of a stroke or kick.

I think about the children in the other pool—healthy, physically and mentally whole. I think about their parents who sit dry on the sidelines with cameras rolling ready to capture each splash, each jump, each giggle, each new skill learned and performed.

I think about the other men and women who come to this pool to recover—grown adults learning how to stand, how to walk, how to move—such remedial tasks for ones so experienced in life. I wonder what wounds bring them to this place.

I take in the whole scene and I think about the pool of Bethsaida, about the cripples who gathered there waiting for that healing ripple, waiting for the touch of those healing waters of life (John 5). I think about the man who was made well and I wonder about all the others there by the pool, did they pick up their mats and walk as well? What did they do after Jesus and the man left?

In life I have seen as God has touched lives and bodies and healed them instantly, and I have also sat in silence and in pain waiting for someone to help me into the water–always hoping and believing yet still, waiting. I wonder about who gets selected for immediate healing and who gets chosen for the long path of rehab and recovery, fighting for each step.

As I behold the exquisite love-story unfold before me, I praise God for the powerful love I see between these fathers and their children, for their painstaking care and attention. I choke back a sob when I consider the unconditional love of my Father who carries my broken self to the healing pool and tenderly caresses my face cooing words of love and affirmation as he exercises my soul strengthening it for the day when I can skip and dance and run into his arms without any limp, without any pain.