The Broken Plate

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds [curing their pains and their sorrows] Psalm 147:3 – AMPC.

Many towns across America have an eatery that local residents fervently love. Such was The Corner Café. The menu boasted “taste of home vittles” and “farm-to-table goodness.”

A building of important historical heritage housed the restaurant. An exposed brick wall separated the first floor into two spaces. The polished cement floor, oak furniture, antique mirrors, vintage leather bar stools, and burnished brass highlighted the richness of the perfectly imperfect brick.

I had chosen the furthest dining booth from the entrance which was a dark pink reclaimed farmhouse door with a beveled glass window.

My guest ordered one of the local favorites, Smoky Bacon Cheddar Breakfast Hash topped with two poached eggs, buttered toast, and a side of grits. I, ever searching for the quintessential eggs Benedict with perfectly poached eggs and a creamy, decadent Hollandaise sauce, ordered Uncle Jimmy John’s Eggs Benedict Toast, a dish guaranteed to “inspire the soul.”

The breakfast was everything the locals promised it would be: “Sensory indulgence locked and loaded where every flavor tells a story.”

We finished our breakfast. Poppy, our waitress, refilled our coffee mugs and quickly disappeared behind the counter.

My new friend began his story. A passerby would have seen a young man in his early to mid-forties sitting across the table from me. That is not what I saw.

As he recounted his story, I quickly realized that a small boy with a broken heart spoke of traumatic events never voiced before today – events of betrayal, domestic violence, physical abuse, emotional abandonment, and substance abuse.

Tears welled up in his eyes. Occasionally one escaped and cascaded down his face. His pain was palpable. He had been wounded as a child by careless adults.

His story was a story, heard much too often, of the wreckage created when parents renounced their marriage vows. For him, the result was a bitter divorce that left him and his sister with shattered dreams. His tender heart had been broken; the very core of his being had been crushed. His hurt turned to resentment and his resentment turned to bitterness. And eventually the hurt, resentment, and bitterness got directed toward God because he believed God could have stopped it all from happening but didn’t.

He concluded his story by sharing with me the following tete-a-tete: Grab a plate and throw it on the ground.

- Ok done. Did it break? - Yes. Now say, “Sorry” to it. - Sorry. Did it go back to the way it was before? - No. Now do you understand. I pondered what he had said. The Holy Spirit began to illuminate his broken plates. As the conversation evolved, I was able to share with him the genesis of one of my broken plates. My restoration started on Father’s Day 1999 at the age of 45-years old. I had been wandering for almost 25 of those years, living a life of hedonism.

I was in a session with a Christian counselor one day and out of nowhere he asked me, “Rick, when were you first aware of a hatred for your dad?”

The question almost knocked my socks off because I had, just hours prior to that session, vividly remembered an incident from my preadolescent years. It was not a memory that was buried in some deep recess of my mind. I believe it was a memory that God highlighted on that particular day so that I could connect a lifetime of hatred with a root cause. The images were vivid, and painful, and quickly brought tears to my eyes as I sat on the counselor’s sofa and told my story.

I remembered my dad being in a drunken state. Like so many times before, he had mixed alcohol with narcotics, resulting in a raging blackout. Something set him off that day, as had happened so many times before. Brandishing a pistol, he threatened to shoot my mom. He had threatened her many times before; but on this day, he pointed the gun at her and fired. My mom hit the floor. I let out a gut-wrenching wail and ran to her, my face twisted in horror. I thought he had killed her.

Lying on the floor, she was hyperventilating and crying. The bullet had passed just in front of her face. In an absolute panic-stricken state, her legs had simply buckled, and she hit the floor.

Something was smashed to pieces inside of me that day. My tender heart was broken; the core of my being was crushed. My hurt turned to resentment and my resentment turned to bitterness. And eventually the hurt, resentment, and bitterness got directed toward God because I believed God could have stopped my dad from doing all of the destructive things he was doing, but God didn’t. In my early twenties, I gave up on God, choosing to live hidden for over two decades in a very dark place.

I had deep woundings and a broken heart. Many of my friends suffered from the same affliction.

Often people with a broken heart (or broken plate) question if their relationship with those that caused the wounding will ever be better or healthy or whole or “the way it used to be.” It might, but a relationship cannot move toward reconciliation if one of the individuals involved has no desire to call a ceasefire or is lacking in the necessary tools to travel that journey.

I had loathed my dad for many years and wanted little to do with him – until Father’s Day of 1999. On that day, I had a divine encounter with the Great Physician and was filled with His Spirit. One day I said to God, “Please do not let my dad leave this world without there being some sort of reconciliation between us.”

Over the next four years, amazing things happened in the relationship with my dad. He shared with me things about his life I had never known. He, too, had several broken plates from his childhood.

About two years before Dad passed, we had a conversation that would change the trajectory of my life. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but I do remember that the conversation drifted to the topic of forgiveness.

In a surreal moment, I heard myself say, “Dad, I need you to forgive me. I have harbored so much hurt, resentment, and bitterness toward you over the years. Please forgive me.”

Things took an about-face. My dad, initially speechless, momentarily hung his head, took a deep breath, locked eyes with me, and said, “Rick, I’ve never held anything against you.”

We hugged. I left shortly thereafter. Tears trickled down my face as I drove away. I had finally owned my sinful response to the sin that had been perpetrated on me.

Bad things can happen to us as children. Others sin against us. Often, it’s adults. In some cases, it’s our parents. In response to this sin, we may make inner vows and judgments. Through the scriptural law of sowing and reaping, we become the very thing we despise, the very thing we swore we would never become.

In that brief moment, sitting in my dad’s living room, a heavy weight was lifted from me. I drove away from Dad’s home a free man. God can do more in a split second than we, along with a multitude of counselors, can do in a lifetime. No longer was I focused on the brokenness of our relationship – the broken plate, if you will. In that instance, God took my broken plate and gave me a new one. Not a piece of Melmac. Not a discontinued pattern from the clearance shelf of The Good Riddance Resale Shop. God gave me a new plate.

God took the broken plate and gave me a piece of high-quality dinnerware made from bone China.

God wants to give us a “new thing.” Isaiah recounted the story of the children of Israel’s flight from Egypt through the Red Sea. Once the Israelites were safely on the other side, Pharoah’s army was snuffed out like candlesticks.

The Lord then instructed, “But forget all that - it is nothing compared to what I’m going to do! For I’m going to do a brand-new thing” (Isaiah 43:18-19 – TLB).

Does God have compassion for the brokenhearted? Of all the authors of the Bible, perhaps King David comprehended the pain of a broken heart the best. He wrote, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18 – ESV).

Can God heal a broken heart? Again, King David wrote, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3 – AMPC).

How does God do it? Through Jesus! I encourage you, dear reader, to open your cupboard and examine its contents. Is there an assortment of broken, chipped plates?

Or is there new, shiny porcelain dinnerware?