When I was in the second grade my teacher, Mrs. Weidemeyer, had a treasure box that students could get a prize from. In order to get a prize you had to earn a 100% on a spelling test on Wednesday. The box was full of toys, candy, trinkets, stickers, small books, pencils and all sorts of eye candy for little kids. Ohh how I longed for the day I could get a prize.
One day in early spring my time had come. I studied very hard and got the 100% needed. On Friday while all the other kids were taking the test again I got to go through the box. I wanted the perfect item so I searched and searched feeling like Indiana Jones looking for the lost ark never giving up even in the face of great peril. Finally I found that perfect item. A Charms Blow Pop, watermelon flavor.
I carefully took my prize and hid it in my desk. All day long I remember peaking at it and thinking how sweet it was going to taste on my way home. I could hardly wait for the end of school that Friday.
When the bell rang I ran across the playground, which had to be 100 yards more or less, but felt like 3 miles. Arriving at the Methodist Church across the street I could now open my prize and partake of it. I began sucking on the pop dreaming about the gum that waited in the middle. Wanting to savior every last grain of sugary goodness I did not take a bite.
Half way to my house my neighbor Elvis asked if he could have a bite. WHAT? I thought are you crazy, my prized sucker, and you want a bite. I told him no. Elvis being a year or two older than me and a much bigger kid proceeded to manipulate and make fun of me then he pulled the sucker out of my mouth and threw it onto the asphalt shattering it to pieces.
A fight ensued and I got my lunch handed to me until a women came out and broke it up and took me home safely. My prize was gone and irreplaceable. Elvis was forced, by his mom, to come over and apologize and even replace my sucker but none of that mattered. My sucker was gone and could not be fixed. I felt a hole grow inside of me. I was unable to forgive my friend and neighbor…I was broken.
The good news is that we are all broken in one way or another but it is in that brokenness that God reaches out to us and puts us back together. He loves us, seeks us, and has made us to love him. We chose to turn from this love and from following him, and from having a relationship but he never turns from us. He just sweeps up the pieces and makes us whole again. The story of God’s creation is one about me…about you…about all of us and how, He our Father, seeks out our broken, shattered lives and says it is alright, you can be whole again.
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