Our Broken Lion

Daddy is the handyman around here so it’s become tradition for my kids to leave their toys and things for him to fix up and he usually waits until he has a few before getting a coffee and grabbing the super glue and going to town on them.

I got up this morning and he’s clearly planing on a little repair session later today. This is what greeted me when I came into the kitchen this morning for my breakfast and time with Him.

A broken cross and a broken lion.

I (figuratively) met his eye with a question for Him.

What are you saying to me, my Lord?

I do not think that God himself put these broken items next to each other on purpose to teach me something. I think He more works with what’s there and doesn’t have some grand plan, but He sees this means something to me and He says, tell me.

Tell me.

The sweetest of words. Tell me. I want to know you. I want to see you. Tell me.

Tell. Me.

Words that have been so sweet to us over the years. I hurt Him, tell me why you did this. He hurts me, tell me how I hurt you.

Tell. Me.

Because He wants to know. Our hearts.

A broken cross and a broken lion? I say to Him. It’s You.

Tell me.

You told us not to know good and evil. To leave that to You. Be easy on the earth You said. Let Me handle that for you. I do it for all my creations.

But we said no. We took that bite and we knew too much. And You’ve been trying to get us back to innocence ever since.

Back to wiener dogs wagging their tails, to fish swimming in seas, to cats eschewing their owners, to elephants so sure of their trunks.

You said do not let yourself become the owners of the pain of right and wrong. But we didn’t listen and now we know.

No longer as free as the animals, but free in a different way. Free to become your favorites because we’re the ones who almost got away.

That bite broke us, but freed You. Freed You to not be the only being in the universe knowing the burden of The Right Thing.

You’re a Lion. Not a tame one. A dangerous and wild one. But broken just a little bit for that decision- to let us choose our fate and maybe we chose wrong, but the cross.

Now we have it all. You have us. We have You.

And sin is broken.