this morning...

At one thirty in the morning he stepped out of the cold and into the diner. Putting the mop bucket back in to it's pail I offered a cheery hello and grabbed a mug and a coffee pot. "Can I start you off with some coffee this morning, sir?" I asked placing a spoon and a napkin in front of him. "Yes please Darlin'", he replied. "Would you like to see a menu as well?" I asked as I poured his coffee. "That would be great", he smiled at me. It was one of those smiles that seem to betray your plans to keep your pain a secret and it seemed to tug at the very core of my being. I passed him a menu and told him to take his time, he was the only one in the diner. Sipping from his hot mug he began to peruse the menu. Before long I learned that his dad had passed away not eight months ago and that his dad was a baker and had had baked the cake for his wedding. Which lead to the real reason he was here. He was single again and needed a warm place to cure the sting of loneliness this particular cold night had brought. He talked about how happy he and his wife once were and the gift of life that their love had conceived and how he wished that everything could just go back to the way that it was. He spoke of his mistakes that caused the train wreck his marriage was rapidly becoming. He and his wife sought counselling and started to attend Church. It was an uphill fight, for every step forward they seemed to take two steps back. He thought they were on their way to success. One time during a counselling session he confessed to looking at pornography and smoking marijuana. Shortly after his wife filed for divorce, she couldn't handle that she had married a man who would do this. His wife told her pastor and he was shunned from that community and kicked out of his house. While I understand his wife's horror and how she felt that all the trust that she had given lay smashed on the floor, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. Here was a man who had honestly tried to put his life back together and there he sat, kicked to the curb by loved ones and those he trusted.
As he sat with his eyes closed, body swaying to the sounds of country music lamenting over lost relationships I couldn't help but hope that my God, the God of comfort, the God of Heaven and earth was bending His ear to this broken man's silent prayer. Like a wave crashing on the shore a sense of awe came over me. Had Jesus been at that diner this is the man that he would have been sitting across from. Although he had been rejected by everyone, even those who claim to follow Jesus, this was it right in front of me, this was who Jesus had come to die for.
Clearing his dishes I began to think "Am I really all that different?". I too have struggled with sin, been rejected from my peers and been broken to the core. But How had I embraced my brokenness? Had I been comforted by the fact that that God alone can sustain me, that I can do nothing on my own? Or had I just simply swept it under the rug, like I do most things, and pretend that it isn't there. Maybe I am still clinging on the fact that if I deny it long enough it will just go away. And I started to wonder that maybe pretending that I am not broken is what is keeping God at a distance. Psalm 34:18 says "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted". So here I am, declaring that I too am broken and that Jesus' sacrifice is all that can heal me. I may never be healed, because nothing on this earth can bring me healing. Nothing but the love of a savior, who thousands of years ago bore a crown of thorns that were meant for me. But I leave this post with a sense of peace, knowing that God is a little bit closer and that I can be whole and broken all at the same time. My life is yours...Sweet Jesus.