Beauty and Beast...dog eats bear

It sounded like my daughter was being being abducted by aliens as I raced around the corner, my heart beating in my chest. My eyes locked onto her, sobbing, running towards me, burying her tear-streaked eyes into my chest wailing:

Daddy! Austin is trying to eat Bear!

I glanced up and over her head and there he stood, motionless, bear hanging limply out of the corners of his mouth. Our eyes met and he froze. I did not have to say a word. I walked to him purposefully, announced with all authority "bad dog", and took Bear out of his mouth without any challenge. 

I held my girl and we checked bear for damage. He was fine and as I stroked her hair and came to realize just how much that lump of faded, flattened stuff meant to her and as always God pulled on soul and spoke about his love. 

Let me share what he showed me: 

Bear was given to Olivia when she was born and we have no recollection where he came from, he has just always has been with us. When Olivia was two or so my wife heard a tip from a friend and tried to find another Bear as an precautionary measure. This failed miserably after we found out he was a "retired" Beanie Baby. Months of ebay seaching yielded a "close but no cigar" bear that Olivia tossed aside and named "more bear". 

Now please bear with me (pun-intended). The Biblical record tells us that after Adam and Eve disobeyed God they were expelled from the Garden and His presence. I have always understood this, as most of have and should, as  God having a bit of anger and frustration but today I can to feel a bit of the sadness too. We see and feel it in  Jesus' tears over the death of his friend Lazarus (John Chapter 11). God feels pain and sadness over loosing his crowned jewels of creation. God was not pleased that day, he was not just angry. He was grieved.

Beloved, you are God's Bear, loved and lost, covered in drool from the happenstances of life.

You are unique and irreplaceable.
You were snatched out of the mouth of death by Jesus who placed himself in there your stead.
He escaped death after three days and wants to draw you from the tomb of death also.
He stopped at nothing to get you back (Romans 8:32).
Call out.
Now.
You are His Bear, he will run to you if you call on Him.
You will be made new.
I wonder. God says that he will wipe away every tear upon his return. Maybe, perhaps, he is talking about the tears he has shed over our death and pain too.