Break my heart with what breaks yours...

I never would have thought that this next blog would come to me over a double quarter pounder and some fries (unhealthy, I know, but I needed to get through the last 2 hours of the torture they call work at Radio Shack). Nevertheless, a lot more was going through my head than the taste of the food while I was filling my self with grease, preservatives, and God only knows what else McDonald's puts in their food.

"Break my heart with what breaks yours" is a phrase that I frequently hear when it comes to thinking like God. In fact, I have prayed it many times. But it's been a while since I can truly say that my heart has broken for someone else... until today at McDonald's. And I couldn't help but to think about God's heart breaking as well.

As I sat down, I noticed that a few tables down from me there was a dad with three young boys. I would say they ranged from age 2-7, give or take. I couldn't help but overhear some of their interactions. They were having such a good time! Laughing and having fun with dad. I had to smile to myself quite often during my meal. Luckily, I had chosen a seat facing the window as people would have questioned my sanity because of my frequent smiling without any outward reason to do so. Regardless, they were having a good time, and I couldn't help but notice it.

The end of this family's meal time is what really caught my attention. The oldest boy got up from the table and put his coat on. He looked toward the window and I heard him say, "There she is." Not sure what he was referring to, I looked out the window, and there was a mini van that pulled in and parked. A young woman got out and started toward the door. As I began to process this, I tried to come up with the best possible scenario in my head. I thought perhaps this was their mom and she had been working; so after work she was meeting her husband and kids at McDonalds. As I processed this theory, I also realized that it could, in fact, be a much different and unpleasant scenario, but I chose not to go along with that.

As she came into the restaurant I paid close attention to see if my hypothesis was correct. However, all of the signs pointed to something else. It became clear that the mother and father were no longer together and that the mom was coming to pick up the kids and the dad was going to leave empty handed. A sort of exchange of goods, if you will. That is an awful way to put it, but that is how I felt. This was the point that my heart began to break. I began to wonder why it had to end up this way for the family. I think what made it worse was that the mom and dad were very civil with each other, even to the extent of sharing a laugh together. I saw that laugh and the breif interaction and couldn't help but wish that that family had not been ripped apart by divorce. Again, it was the first time it quite some time that my heart has felt like that.

I began to think about how God intended marriage to be. This family portrait was far from what God had intended, if I understand scripture. Then I got to thinking about the worlds standards. By most standards, this was probably a pretty good divorce. The two were civil human beings while together with their kids, so it was probably a succesful divorce in the eyes of worldly standards. Is there a such thing as a succesful divorce though? I mean, God had such high standards for the sacrament of marriage, and for any of them to end is for them to miss out on the beauty of marriage as God intended it. These observations gave me such a sense of longing for the restoration that Christ has promised us. See, things, at one point were right, they were good. And the beauty of it all, is He is going to make it right again. That is the story of redemption. I wanted so badly to somehow make it right for this family, but all I could do was pray. But somehow, that didn't seem like enough.

By no means is this blog meant to condemn people who have experienced divorce, it is simply a reflection on a scenario that broke my heart, and, in turn a reflection on the hope of restoration that we have in Christ.