Many years ago one of the best friends I have ever had, Chris Goldman, gave me a Captain America coffee mug. I have kept it safe all this time. It has never had coffee in it and It has been displayed everywhere I have lived. It is important to me. It is a reminder of Chris and his loyalty to me as a friend, even when I made things hard for him and his family with bad choices that I made. I love the guy and in turn I love the mug.
I am currently setting up a home theater of sorts in the garage. Nothing hugely exciting but it’s where I can display my Broncos posters and Captain America collection. This week my 9-year-old had some friends over and they were playing with the toys in the garage. The boy noticed all the Cap memorabilia (that’s what grown ups call their toys and dolls, or rather, action figures). You can probably see where this is headed already. I told them about it and asked them not to play with the mug. Well three kids and a stumble later Captain America was defeated by the law of gravity.
My daughter came inside with the mug and told me what happened. My heart sank at the sight of Cap with half of his face gone. Then my heart broke like the mug when I saw the tears in my little girl’s eyes. She didn’t break the mug, the boy did. I didn’t scold her or yell at her to make her cry. She was crying because she knew how important the mug was to me and when the pain of its loss came across my face, she hurt with me.
This time, my 9-year-old was Jesus to her daddy. When life deals its worst at us and pain fills our hearts, I know that Jesus sees. He sees the grief. He sees the disrepair. He sees our hurt. And just like my precious little girl, He cries too. He cries for us, but even more importantly, He cries with us.
I see that mug that Marie Anne so carefully glued back together for me (Yes yet another image of how Jesus cares for us) and I don’t see a mug, I see Christ now. The mug is more precious to me broken than it ever was new. Now it is real and better, because it was not only given in love,but love rescued it when it was broken, and love restored it to be exactly what it was intended to be. Captain America has fallen, and I am so glad he did. 1 Peter 5:7 “Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you.”