THE TWO PATHS OF BROKENNESS

I told God that I feel broken now with the death of my only child, my son. I am aware of in these moments, the two paths that brokenness presents to us when tragedy or hardship occurs. Will the brokenness we experience lead us to a greater dependence on God? Will it lead to the permanent acknowledgment that our weakness prevails in this life and only the Lord can be our strength? Will it break open our hearts to the point where we have dropped all emotional self-protection and learn to love others as we love ourselves? Will our focus shift to what really matters in this life and see it as Christ sees it?

If the first path that brokenness can lead to is chosen, we retreat in life. No one and nothing matters much anymore. We shove aside the tenderness of heart that the brokenness brings about and shut it out. The heart hardens itself further and the prison doors lock up tighter than ever. Anger, depression, and bitterness progressively develop. The mentality of the “victim” begins to set in in our thought life. The “blame game” or unforgiveness progressively overtakes us which is directed toward God or someone else. In short, we don't see a way out. The fruit of this paradigm shift is emotional, relational, and eventually spiritual decay and deadness. This is the path of a fallen world's way of dealing with the brokenness when it occurs.

The choice of the second path instead can bring a new dimension of life. This is the path I choose. The hardness of heart I had prayed for God to remove several years ago, is gone. My heart is tender now, and when I hear of someone else's tragedy or hardship, I am moved to compassion and even at times, weep for them. Empathy was minimal in my life before, and I didn't take much thought about what others suffer, until now. I had, in the past, cared more about a suffering animal than a hurting human being. I say this to my shame. In repeated prayers over the years I have told God that I knew there was something wrong with this attitude and that I knew it wasn't supposed to be this way. People are supposed to matter far more than animals ( and I deeply love animals). If we're really honest, I think many of us are this way, but don't think about it much. This has changed now for me. Others do matter more. The love of Christ is beginning to prevail in my relationships. The second path's brokenness has caused the best paradigm shift, and is the most fruitful spiritually that can be taken if we choose it. It's fruit is agape love, self-sacrifice moved by compassion, and a helplessness that throws itself into the arms of God every day.

If we allow God to take our brokenness and turn it to the greatest good in our lives, and shun the world's way of facing it, then we have taken the best pathway possible,....it is the path that comes along side and participates in Christ's suffering or attitude that leads to His holiness and the understanding of His heart and His heartbeat.

THE TABLE OF LOVE OR THE TABLE OF DREAD

After watching the last of a video series at church about the family and it's importance, my Pastor asked us all a question. What was supper like in our homes as children growing up? The supper table sets the tone for the knitting together of a family in it's relationships. Several people shared their experiences, most were pleasant. I debated on whether to speak up at all on this issue. I did not.

As a child, and for most of my adult life, coming to the supper table was an experience that was deeply dreaded each evening. Indeed, I remember staying outside, playing as long as I could to put off coming inside to sit at the table when dinner was announced. As we sat to eat, the entire meal was fraught with verbal and emotional abuse and sometimes physical attack. My father was a critical alcoholic and did not hesitate to strike out at everyone during the evening meal. It was a nightmare. The best strategy was to just keep quite, and perhaps one would be overlooked for any forthcoming abuse.

In the scriptures God speaks of sitting at His table and supping with Him. Ah yes,...the great banquet spoken of in Isaiah 25:6. Christ spoke of inviting Him in to dine with us in Revelation 3:20. This is something to look forward to for all who follow Him. In 1988 I was working temporarily in Washington state and was staying with my parents while my husband Randy who was a lineman, was working on a job out of town on the east coast. We planned to return to his home state of Florida when his job was finished. During a phone conversation two weeks before his job ended, and in the course of our conversation he said to me, “Marguerite, I'm tired of living my life the way I've been living it. I want to know Christ in my life again. Can you help me?” I was ecstatic! I had been praying for my husband to return to Christ for some time. In his youth, Randy had experienced the touch of God to become a minister of the gospel but did not follow through with God's plan. God had turned his heart toward Him once again. In two more weeks my husband would be home with a heart following God again. I could not wait!

In the several nights that followed, I began to experience visitations from God. He was speaking to me nightly for long periods of time as I slept. They were lengthy conversations of some sort, yet I could not remember what had been said when I awoke the next morning. It baffled me. I knew enough though to know that God was “downloading” something of importance to me that would be needed in the future. What struck me the most was the feeling that I had of having sat down at a great banquet all night with the Lord,....His words were feeding me as He spoke them. In the mornings after I awoke, I felt something that I cannot even begin to describe. It was the deepest, most profound satisfaction of spirit and soul I've ever known. There was an ongoing, multi-night banquet feeding my spirit and my soul for several days. The impact of the nightly visitations prompted me to share the experiences with my mother.

Two weeks later I was notified that my husband was dead. An accident on his job site took his life. It had happened on the last day of his job, one hour before quitting time. He was 34 years old. I was 32.

Our son Randall was four years old. You see, Randy had promised me that he would not work on jobs out of town anymore that kept us apart as a family.

As I entered the funeral home's office to make arrangements I was asked if I wanted see him to make sure everything was in order for the evening viewing to come. I had dreaded this,...viewing his body without his spirit present, and facing death for the first time in my life,..looking upon his face, to see the death of someone I loved. I entered the room where his body was. A well meaning funeral employee had applied the mortician's make up to Randy's face and it was too pale. I noticed it immediately as Randy was a deeply tanned individual. His blonde hair and blue eyes belied his American Indian heritage which caused him to tan easily. I pointed this out to the mortician and directed the him for several minutes on re-applying a darker shade of makeup so Randy's face had a more natural appearance. I was guided by a supernatural calmness and peace that I had never experienced before. There was no falling apart emotionally, no fear for the twenty minutes of time that it took to do so.

I stepped outside of the funeral home afterwards to take in all that I had just walked through. The Florida sun was shining so brightly that afternoon. In an instant, as I stepped into the sunshine, the content of God's nightly visitations, for the first time, flooded my mind......and I remembered. The insight and understanding came to me that I had been through several “rehearsals” in my sleep from the Holy Spirit to prepare me for the 20 minutes that had just occurred. God had already walked me through that particular twenty minutes with the funeral home employee during the nights as I had slept the two weeks before. God had been to preparing me beforehand to be able face my husband's death. In retrospect, I would not have had the emotional strength and courage needed to walk into the room where my husband's body was, much less direct the mortician on the re-application of the facial makeup that needed to be changed.

Those banquets of God that I sat at in preparation for Randy's passing, were amazing and beyond any description I can give here. I will never forget the satisfaction I felt that superseded any earthly one I've ever ever known. For a short period of time I've briefly dined at God's banquet table, and not a table of dread. When my Pastor asked the question that he did, I reflected on these memories. Does the abuse I experienced as a child and young adult at my family's supper table, the table of dread, hinder me in accepting everyday invitations to God's supper table of love in communion with Him?