“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.” We have always pictured Humpty Dumpty as an egg. The implication is, when Humpty fell off the wall, he was shattered into smithereens; beyond hope and beyond help. Even the king with all his resources could not restore him.
Shortly after Cecil and I set up housekeeping together, I heard a crash in the kitchen. Cecil had kindly volunteered to do the breakfast dishes. When I went to investigate, I found him standing in the middle of the room with shards of glass all around. He looked like a little boy doomed for punishment.
“It’s just a coffee carafe,” I assured him. “We can replace it.”
Can you imagine trying to put it back together? This piece goes here and that piece goes there, and these millions of little shards don’t fit anywhere. Just throw it away.
Broken things are easily disposable or replaceable. Broken lives are another matter.
We all suffer brokenness sooner or later in this life.
When the doctor said surgery was impossible and I should take Cecil home and enjoy him for the days given us, something inside me shattered into nine million little pieces that flew off in every direction. There was no way to put me, the me I had always known, back together again. When he breathed his last precious breath, people came with sympathy, food, hugs, prayers and advice.
While I appreciated everything offered, I discovered it wasn’t sympathy or food or advice I needed. I needed Cecil. I needed to go back to yesterday, when life was sweet and the future promised everything we had dreamed of.
“Nothing else can make me whole again,” I thought.
“Nothing else can make me whole again,” I thought.
Someone said, “Well, what about praising the Lord?”
“Well, what about it?” I answered.
Perhaps that would have been considered a noble thing, but I was in no condition to praise anyone. I just wanted to know “why.” Why did God allow this? What did I do wrong?
I did pray. My prayers consisted mostly of a dreadful howl, “O God, I need, I need you! Please help me.”
AND HE DID!
Over a period of two years, as I stumbled through the days crying out to the Lord and trying my best to concentrate upon His word, piece by piece my life came together again. I don’t know when the restoration began, and I wasn’t aware of its progression, but I do remember the morning I crawled out of bed and KNEW that life was going to be good again. What all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not do, God can and did do. He did not reproduce that same gal, who was a bit arrogant and self-assured, but just as the potter did, He made me again into another vessel, as it seemed good to Him – a better, stronger vessel. There will always be a place in my heart where Cecil fit perfectly, but I am ready to sing again. I am ready to live again, doing whatever God wills.
Perhaps you are hurting today. Something in you is broken. You’re life is in ruins. Divorce has taken its toll, your beloved child is gone, the doctor has just pronounced your death sentence, or you’ve lost your home. Maybe your brokenness is simply the result of your own foolish mistakes.
With the Psalmist you are saying, “I am forgotten. I am like a broken vessel.” You are thinking, “Nothing will ever be the same again.” You’re right. It won’t, but –
I am here to tell you that life can and will be better, because God is a God of complete restoration.
Remember Job? When he lost his seven sons and three daughters, all of his great wealth, and finally his health, he said, “Even if God kills me still I will trust Him.” In Job 42:2 – 3, he said to God, “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from you.” In other words, God can do anything He wants to do.
He wanted to restore Job, and He did. Job had seven more sons and three more daughters. His wealth was doubled, and his health restored.
Jesus wants to restore you. He came and died on Calvary to fix ruined lives.
David said, “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart…” Ps. 34:18, and again in Ps. 147:3, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
In Luke 4:18, Jesus, Himself, said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,…He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted.”
You need not live in despair. Jesus is tomorrow’s SONSHINE!
THE SUN WILL COME OUT TOMORROW!