The Other Side of Broken

Life has a way of shattering even the best-laid hopes.

We start with dreams in our hands, and one day we realize those same hands are holding pieces.

There are moments when faith sounds like a whisper. Days when you look at the fragments of what used to be your future and all you can say is, “Lord, if You had been here.”

But what if the story does not end in the breaking?

What if broken is only the doorway to something greater?

There is still life on the other side of broken.

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The House in Bethany (John 11)

The air inside the little house in Bethany is heavy with grief. 

A brother lies still. Two sisters weep.

This home belongs to Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.

No father is mentioned. No mother. No spouses. Just three siblings alone in the world. Befriended by Jesus.

He has eaten at their table. He has laughed in their living room. He has called them by name.

So when Lazarus grows sick, they know exactly what to do. They send for Him.

Jesus has healed the blind, opened deaf ears, and cast out devils. Surely this will be no different.

But the days pass, and He does not come.

Lazarus weakens.

Hope fades.

And then he dies.

They wrap his body and bury him, not only their brother, but their future, their security, and their belief that God would come through.

In their world, a man is more than family. He is the provider, the protector, the foundation that keeps the walls standing. Without Lazarus, there is no income, no inheritance, no future.

They have lost everything.

When Jesus finally arrives, the tomb has been sealed for four days.

Martha goes to meet Him, eyes swollen from grief.

Her voice breaks as she speaks.

“Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Later Mary kneels at His feet and says the same words.

“If You had been here.”

Those are the words every believer eventually speaks.

Lord, I prayed, and You did not come.

Lord, I believed, and You did not heal.

Lord, I trusted, and You did not stop it.

But Jesus is not late.

He waits until resurrection is the only option left.

Sometimes God delays the miracle so that no one else can take the glory.

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Two Mothers Before a King (1 Kings 3)

Far from Bethany, another scene unfolds. A courtroom. A king. Two women.

They are not noblewomen, or the wives of rich merchants.

We know no details about them. No names, no families, only their place in society. 

Scripture calls them harlots, women living on the edges of society, invisible to the world around them. 

Life in the margins, lives of mess and chaos. 

They share a home. Each gives birth to a son.

For a brief moment the house is filled with the cries of new life.

For women who had nothing, these children are everything. Their future, their reasons for living. 

Then tragedy comes.

One woman wakes in the night to find her baby lifeless beside her.

In panic and heartbreak she takes the living child from the other woman and claims him as her own.

Morning brings horror and chaos.

The surviving mother wakes to feed her child and realizes the baby in her arms is not hers.

A mother’s heart knows the truth.

Now they stand before Solomon.

Two women. One living child.

The king listens. The accusations rise and fall until the room is filled with tension.

Then Solomon says, “Bring me a sword.”

The room goes silent. The attendants obey.

“Divide the living child in two,” he commands.

“Give half to one and half to the other.”

In that instant, the true mother cries out.

“No! Give her the baby. Only let him live.”

It is not weakness. It is love refined by pain.

It is faith that has learned to surrender.

It says, “Lord, I would rather You hold it than lose it trying to control it.”

Solomon points to the woman whose love refused to destroy the living thing and says, “Give her the child. She is the mother.”

What was about to die is restored.

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Mary at the Cross (Luke 23)

The wind at Golgotha carries the sound of weeping.

The sky has turned black. The ground trembles. There is the smell of sweat and blood in the air. 

A mother stands at the foot of a cross. Tears stream down her face. 

Her name is Mary.

She once held her newborn son in a stable and listened as angels sang over Him.

She had believed every word that God had spoken.

She watched Him grow, teach, and heal.

Now the hands that touched lepers hang nailed to wood.

The voice that spoke peace whispers through agony.

The promise she once carried is dying in front of her.

When He cries, “It is finished,” it doesn’t sound like victory to her. It sounds like a final gasping goodbye

To her, it feels like the end.

But what Mary cannot see is that God is not finished.

The cross is not the conclusion. It is the beginning.

While she watches death, God is defeating it.

While she mourns loss, He is preparing resurrection.

Resurrection is not just an event.

It is a person.

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The Tomb and the Call (John 11:38-44)

Back in Bethany, the stone still seals the tomb.

The crowd stands in quiet disbelief as Jesus approaches.

Four days late. The crowd murmurs, he should have been here before. He is four days late.

He looks at the cave and says, “Take away the stone.”

Martha hesitates. “Lord, by this time he stinks.”

Jesus replies, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

He lifts His eyes toward heaven and prays.

Then He turns to the grave and calls, “Lazarus, come forth.”

The earth seems to hold its breath.

Something stirs inside the darkness.

A figure moves at the entrance, bound in linen and grave clothes.

Jesus says, “Loose him, and let him go.”

When Jesus calls something out of the grave, He does not only raise it. He frees it.

What once stank of death now stands alive in the light of day.

Hope breathes again.

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It Is Well (2 Kings 4)

There is another story of loss. Another moment of brokenness and faith.

A woman in Shunem had been promised a son by the prophet Elisha. Years later, the boy dies suddenly in her arms.

Her promise cold and lifeless in her arms. 

She does not bury him.

She carries him upstairs and lays him on the prophet’s bed, the place where God’s prophet had once rested.

Then she goes to find Elisha.

When his servant meets her and asks, “Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?” she answers, “It is well.”

Her words do not deny her pain.

They declare her faith.

She believes what looks dead to her is not dead to God.

If she can get back to the one who spoke the promise, that promise can live again.

Even when her heart doubts what her mouth declares, she still says it.

It is well.

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Life on the Other Side of Broken

They told her it was over.

They told Mary and Martha the story could not be redeemed.

They told the world that Jesus was gone.

But every one of them discovered the same truth.

God still writes endings no one expects.

Maybe this is where you find yourself today.

Standing at the grave of something you once believed in.

A dream. A calling. A future you thought would never die.

You have whispered, “Lord, if You had been here.”

But what looks finished to you is not finished to God.

The stone is rolling.

The promise is stirring.

Hope is breathing again.

There is still life on the other side of broken.

And He is still the God who calls you out of the grave by name.