Learning to Live Again

Yesterday I attended a benefit where the goal of the organization is to mend broken hearts. The various ways the mending is accomplished looks different to meet different needs, but the end result is always the same - mending those broken hearts and learning to live again. It reminds me of a song I love "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?"made popular 1971 - could it really be 40 years ago!

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/nottinghill/howcanyoumendabrokenheart.htm

I can think of younger days when living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow, but I was never told about the sorrow

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend a this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again

I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
We could never see tomorrow, no one said a word about the sorrow

And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again

"Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again." What a line. What a prayer so many of us plead to our selves, to others and to our God.

This became so clear to me this morning while breaking an egg into a skillet. That egg is often thought of as the perfect, natural food. Pure nutrition wrapped up in a nice hard shell. The only way to get to the good nutritive value of that egg is to break it - crack that shell on the edge of the skillet and out comes the beautiful healthy food. After it is released from that hard shell, it can become what we use to say when I was a Home Economist, "the incredible, edible egg." It can be friend, poached, scrambled. It can hold a cake together or make a soufflé rise. It can be a salad or thicken a soup. The little broken egg can be transformed into a thing of wonder and delight. But it has to have its shell broken before it can be transformed. It became so clear to me as I studied God's word - breaking is painful and breaking frees us. But I am not the first one to learn this although this morning I thought I was. Consider what C.S. Lewis said:

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

"Hatching" is painful. Hatching is the realization that the world is not right and there is something we must go through to keep from going bad. It is a choice we all make. But the hatching can open us up for healing and binding of wounds and power. Hatching is where the transformation takes place and all the gifts we possess come out and become honey for others - scrambled, friend, poached - like bread and wine. If I believe scripture - and I do - then I know that God heals our broken hearts and he binds up our wounds. (Psalm 147:3) I also believe the God's grace is sufficient for me and my power is made perfect in my brokenness and I should tell others about my brokenness so that the power of Christ will rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Lewis said we cannot go on indefinitely being just some ordinary, decent egg. It's not enough. We'll go bad. Something must change in our hearts - it must be broken...

and then it can mend.....

and live again.