It's too Late

He stood in the open field for a long time, an eternity and forever and then one more day. It was too late for him. He was spent, used up, a shell of a man, not even a man. He was indignity wrapped desperately in the world around him, fearfully and wonderfully made, but he did not know it. 

The tiger stood with him, telling him the truth. It was the color of a Tiger Lily. Black spots, vibrant fire-orange, not like a tiger should be, just as the man was not like a man 

should be. 

They watched the sun set and rise. They saw the dawn, but neither moved toward it or accepted its warmth. The tiger, because he was standing guard; the man because he didn't know how. 

"I am broken," he said, repeating over and over that he, 

"Got it." He was ingrained with a lie. It held him, whispered to him, froze him. He thought he was one thing, but he was another. The tiger growled and spoke and recited the truth, but the man would not hear him. He would not believe even a talking tiger.

No longer will you be called Forsaken...

Isaiah 62:4

So they stood, facing the sun, staring at it. One saw nothing. One saw hope. Then the sun moved. It reached into the man, deeply, to the spot in his heart he had hidden away, the protected place. The sun leaned in and whispered. The whisper was like a shout. A proclamation. "You," the sun said, "Are mine."

And suddenly the lie would no longer do. The man wanted to know what that meant.