Blogpost: Broken Lives, Cracked Hearts, and Restoration

BLOGPOST: Broken Lives, Cracked Hearts, and Restoration

Broken
We grow from broken toys to broken hearts.
Broken is usually not a happy word.
Broken:  Damaged.
Inadequate. Alone.
But Broken Bread fixes hearts.
It feeds and fills.
Broken Bread makes us new.
“So that the world may know”
 
Broken people, broken families, broken communities. Where can we find healing?
We see the broken communities on internet and television news feeds. And this brokenness isn’t always far away. It is right where we live. If we look around ourselves, we can see it up close.
Broken communities are made up of broken people. Many come from broken families.  Only a few know the restorative touch of an unbroken church.
During the school year, my daily drive takes me past several church buildings in our town. Several are vibrant and alive with the Gospel. Some have a heritage involving multiple generations, constant in faith over the years. Some are new plants, sprouting and promising a good harvest.
Others have loose bricks and boarded windows. Those are the saddest ones. Decaying edifices, sepulchers with chipped and peeling paint, cemeteries of dead ministries that once lived and breathed truth and love.
Somehow they got off track. Or we did. Or both.
Many of these buildings have found new functions as dance, self-defense, or athletic centers. Our neighborhoods need such places. They give the kids something to do. They meet a need. But they cannot meet our primal need for healing of the brokenness that resides within each of us.
The repurposing of buildings is not always a one way street. Sometimes, it’s not an old church that finds a new purpose, but an old building that becomes a new church.
In the center of our city is a small church that once had another use. A young man having returned from Vietnam frequented this place. Sitting on a barstool, he could hardly imagine that one day he would lead his own flock in that very spot. His flock is growing.  His life changed. Now, his neighborhood is changing. And changing for the better.
His journey was not just from broken to healed.  It was from broken to healer.
If you ask him about his transformed life, he will credit God and his praying mother. God, in response to a relentless mother, changed his life. No doubt her heart cracked as she watched him trying to find solace where it does not exist.
Now his heart cracks for his broken neighbors. His church is alive and growing.
The churches that closed their doors? Many of them lost the sense of who Christ is. Virgin born, Son of God, Savior, King, Counselor, Priest, Lord. The Holy One whose heart cracked for broken humanity.
Broken people need God to find healing. But they need to see Him in us. Our hearts need to crack for them, so His love can pour out to them.
They will see Him in our love for God, for other Christians, and for them. Together, we can be the transformed lives that can transform families, churches, and our communities.