Cardboard Cross

For our daily Lent activity I cut out a cross from cardboard.  The plan was to have Sean paint it and then hang it on the back of our door in the living room.  As we were painting I decided to do a  heart in the center.  He has this thing lately with hearts.  When he sees one he likes to point to it and say, "I gotta tell you something.  I love you."  Seeing a teachable moment I wanted him to have a visual reminder of how much Christ loves us.

So I told him he could paint all over, just don't scribble the heart.  Well, he tried.  Kind of.  As he was tiring of the project he was none too concerned about the heart.  I fought the irritation and figured I could just fix it when we finished.

And then I looked at that flawed heart and realized God had a teachable moment in store for me, too.  It was our imperfect hearts that nailed Jesus to the cross in the first place.  I did not fix the heart.  I prefer this scribbled  reminder of His love.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Romans 5:8