The Table Broke

A couple of weeks ago, on a lazy Saturday afternoon, I was sitting in our family room reading. I wasn't reading anything serious, just a novel, when the peace was punctuated by the noise of something shattering just outside the sliding doors onto our alfresco area.

I looked up expecting to see the light globe broken or something, but I couldn't see anything...until I looked down and saw that the table of our outdoor setting, a glass topped table, had completely disintegrated. It was now thousand of bits of safety glass covering the patio. There seemed to be no reason, no explanation, it just broke.

It might have been the cold mornings and warm days, the age of the glass, a combination of the two, or some other reason (I'm thinking a really over-weight insect), but our table broke. My daughter came to see, my wife came to see, my son came to see, and we started the job of cleaning up the mess, all the while making sure our inquisitive dog didn't injure himself on the glass.

So, armed with broom and shovel and dustpan and brush and wheelie-bin, we cleaned up the broken glass. We have a smaller, wooden setting that we dragged over to re-arrange the patio. In some ways it actually looks better, but not quite the same. You see I know, I was there, I heard it, I remember.

The table broke.

We all have broken tables in our lives. We all have moments and events and seasons when our ’tables’ break. Often there isn't a reason, sometimes there is but it isn't a very good one, sometimes we are to blame. Everyday has the potential for a broken table, the value of the table (yep, I'm really stretching the metaphor now) determines whether you will attempt to repair it or not, but at some point you will need to clean up the mess and re-arrange things.

Your table might be the death of a loved one, a lost relationship, the demise of a dream, financial hardship, health issues or another personal tragedy. To some people it might only be a broken table and they wonder why it means so much to you; but it's your table, it happened to you, and you remember it clearly. Your memory will probably include your emotions at that moment and the echoes of those feelings every time you think of it. 

And no matter how you approach it, or whether other people understand or not - your table broke!

Jesus knew all about broken things. He came to a world full of broken people, demonstrated how to live a life that will not only bring healing to ourselves, but enable us to participate in the healing of others as well, and ultimately he died and rose again to prove that even the most painful brokenness of all - death - cannot triumph over the kind of life he makes available.

Jesus knew all about broken things, he said, "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he has brought justice through to victory" (Matt. 12:20). Did you get the power of that? There is, in that little verse, the inference that some things, when broken, can't be put back together again, that sometimes we will never 'get over it' and 'move on.' But the promise of justice and victory, one day, also means that rather than stare hopelessly at our broken tables we can, with God's help, clean up the mess, re-arrange things, and keep going.

We might remember, we might still feel the hurt, the pain, the regret, we might still not understand why the table broke, but at least we don't have to pretend to be anyone other than someone who has had a table break on them and chooses to live in a world of broken tables without fear, without despair, and with a little more compassion and understanding and grace.

I started writing this post on the afternoon the table broke. I was sitting on the other setting with Vicki and diligently writing about broken tables. Then I moved the text to Dropbox ready to complete it on my laptop later.

And then the internet broke. Somehow my text got lost somewhere between my iPad and my MacBook. The internet broke, Dropbox dropped the ball, and my post got lost. I don't know how the internet works, and my original post is somewhere lost in space being read by ET, but it simply serves to underline the reality that we live in a world of broken things. It's a world where tables break, the internet breaks, and metaphors get stretched to breaking point. It's a world full of people who have broken tables of their own who can stand with us and walk with us to a place of healing, and of a God who loves broken people and who gave all he had to suffer with and for his creation.

What are your broken tables? How have you cleaned up? Who can you walk with to a place of healing, or who can walk with you?