Typically, at the start of the school year, stuffies (short for stuffed animals for the uninitiated) show up to Kindergarten Bible school. Though not registered for Kids’ Harbor, we never turn away stuffies of any color, critter or costume.

I understand this attachment to stuffies. When my son was young, his treasured Winnie-the-Pooh stuffie came along for a family weekend in Chicago. And then it happened. We had checked out of the hotel and were hurrying to catch the train out of the city, when our son wailed, “I left Pooh Bear in the room. I need him.”

In a matter of seconds, the concierge and the front desk and housekeeping staff became involved in our family drama to retrieve Winnie the Pooh. When the concierge announced that Pooh Bear has been reunited with his family, the entire front desk broke out in applause.

I thought of stuffies the other week as I read 2 Chronicles 13 for Women’s Bible Study. Abijah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam, king of Israel were at war when Abijah stood up on Mount Zemariam and jarred Israel’s collective memory regarding to whom God gave the kingdom, and questioned Jeroboam’s battle plan: “And now you think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David, because you are a great multitude and have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made you for gods.”

It probably comes from hanging out with Kindergarteners every Sunday, but I started to laugh as I imagined Jeroboam’s 800,000 “chosen mighty warriors” tucking their little golden calf stuffies under their arms—too attached to leave them behind during the battle.

I wish I could laugh at the stuffies in my life, but like the mighty warriors, I am too attached to them to leave them behind. One of my favorite stuffies is Creature Comfort. Then there’s the twin stuffies Achievement and Accolade. The coolest stuffie talks, and her name is Miss Opinion. When paired with Bluetooth, she can come with me anywhere and anytime. Oh, how I love Miss Opinion.

Your stuffie collection might be different from mine, but not our shared attachment to them. It’s the attachment that tethers us to the here and now, to what we can see and to what we think we control. Our gaze is distinctly horizontal, looking for a human savior to rescue us.

In his bookThe Heart in Pilgrimage: A Treasury of Classic Devotionals on the Christian Life, Leland Ryken has a devotional by Richard Baxter, “The Saints’ Everlasting Rest.” Stuffies probably weren’t at the forefront of Baxter's mind when he wrote this devotional, but he did offer a solution for our attachment to them: look up to our eternal rest. Baxter wrote, “take one walk every day in the new Jerusalem.” He calls to mind Daniel, who “in his captivity, daily opened his window toward Jerusalem, though far out of sight, he went to God in his devotions; so may the believing soul, in this captivity of the flesh, look towards Jerusalem which is above.”

It’s Lent—the season of preparation for Good Friday sorrow and Easter joy. Perhaps the best way to prepare for resurrection—both Christ’s and our promised one—is to open our windows in captivity or in a den filled with real lions (not stuffed ones) or in our creature comforts and take that daily walk in the New Jerusalem.