It’s Five-Minute Friday time … and this week’s prompt is:

broken.

Five minutes of free writing, no edits.  Join up here.

Here we go …

If you scan the pews carefully, you’ll see them.  Peppered throughout each row, they are there.

The broken ones.

The one who lost his teenage son to the recklessness of a drunk driver.

The one who subconsciously cradles her abdomen in memory of the multiple miscarriages she has endured.

The one who knows she should be happy, but just can’t seem to shake the baby blues.

The one who is losing his grip on a marriage that teeters on the brink.

They are the broken ones.

Some hide it better than others, but they are there.

At first glance, one might prematurely presume that it is their brokenness that binds them together.

In part, it’s true.

But it’s not only the commonality of their shattered hearts that unites them.

It’s more than that.

It’s the One whose body was broken for them, who carried the weight of their sin to the cross, and who overcame that brokenness to rise again.

It’s the One who binds up the brokenhearted, who daily bears their burdens.

He is the One who brings each one of those broken people to cross the threshold of the suburban church doors week after week,

that they might be

healed.  Restored.  Made whole.