When they left the Interpreter’s house, another traveler came with them. He was tall, with a shield on his back and a sword at his side. But when he smiled, he first looked down to find the children’s faces. His name was Great-heart. The Interpreter had sent him to guide and protect them.
“He knows the road,” Chris said.
“I know some of it,” Great-heart replied. “Bridges can break, and rain can fall. We shall still look carefully when we get there.”
Chris stopped as they approached the cross. He did not tell his mother how she ought to feel. He simply showed her where he had sat. “I waited here a long time,” he said.
Christiana walked up the slope. Only then did she realize how heavy her back had been. It was not the cooking pot or her daughter’s wet clothes. Whenever she remembered refusing to listen, the ropes on her shoulders tightened. She had thought she ought to keep them there, so she would not forget.
She looked up at the crossbeam. “I told my son not to believe your words,” she said quietly. “I treated his fear for us as a child making trouble. And I wanted everyone to think I was a mother who had arranged everything well.”
Her husband came beside her. “I refused to listen too,” he said.
A breeze passed over the low hill. Neither of them began making excuses. Mercy knelt a little farther away. Their daughter held her father’s coat and stood quietly.
“The Lord Jesus does not save you because you feel sorry enough,” Great-heart said. “Your hope is that he has already borne sin. Trusting him means giving yourselves to this Savior and believing that his words are true.”
Christiana remembered her son standing beside her that day. The memory remained. What had happened was still real. But as she asked the Lord to forgive her, the ropes loosened. Her burden fell and rolled down into the tomb below. Her husband’s fell too, with a heavy thud.
She felt light, and yet she wept. She had imagined that losing her burden would mean pretending she had never hurt anyone. Now she understood that the Savior did not ask her to lie. He let her admit the truth without spending her whole life trying to pay for it by punishing herself.
The messengers gave them clean clothes and sealed scrolls. Holding hers, Christiana asked, “What if I do wrong again?”
“Confess it to the Lord and ask his help. Admit it to anyone you have hurt. Do not hide, and do not treat grace as permission to go on hurting people.”
As they went down the slope, she asked her son whether he would walk beside her. Chris nodded. She did not repeat a long apology. She listened as he described feeling so light that day that he could not help jumping.
She tried a small jump herself. Her daughter saw and laughed, tugging at her father’s hand.