I’m sitting on the floor in the boys’ bedroom next to an ocean of Legos.

The three-year-old is building a monster truck, or at least an abstract impression of a monster truck.

Every few minutes he lets out a roar — the sort of wordless, guttural howl of frustration that only toddlers know.

“UUUGGGGGHHHHHHH!’

I glance over. He’s tried to add a stack of three dozen legos vertically on top of of his monster truck, and the laws of physics have foiled him yet again.

He’s furious. He hurls the monster truck across the room.

“It just broke again. It won’t stop breaking!”

(This is accompanied, of course, by more growling and roaring.)

“It just keeps breaking! It’s not supposed to break!”

Why not?

“Because I can’t rebuild it again.”

(Deep signs of despair and toddler arms flailing hopelessly.)

Why can’t you rebuild it again?

“Because I can’t remember how it goes!”

Well that’s ok! You can built it a new way!

“It’s supposed to be the way it was, and I can’t build it the way it was again.”

(Utter dejection.)

///

Oh, my little one. I know all those feels. I know them so well.

For a long time now I’ve been sitting on the floor in my room, next to an ocean of broken pieces.

And I’ve been saying all the same things my boy says:

It’s not supposed to break, but it does. It just keeps breaking. I’ve tried as hard as I know how but I can’t rebuild it again, because I can’t remember how it was supposed to go. I want it to go back to the way it was, the way it was supposed to be.

///

But if God was the sort of Father who spoke audibly, I imagine he’d say to me the same thing I said to my boy with the broken Legos:

It’s ok that it broke. It’s ok that you can’t put it back together the same way it was. Now you get to build something new. Here, bring me the pieces and let me help you.