Broken

She eyed the valley below carefully, heavy in thought. The bridge she stood upon stretched vastly across the pass. Few things remained here for her. She was broken. Unrepairable. Shattered. But still the final warm coals of her soul yearned for ignition. A part of her wanted to be found. To be asked. To be calmed. So she waited. Eventually, a curious traveler stopped and inquired of her problem. "What's going on Miss?" he said, "is everything okay?" She turned and looked him up and down. Maybe this was her knight and the story wouldn't end here. "If everything was 'okay' then I probably wouldn't be standing on a bridge looking down," she tested. "O...oh... right... uh, well what really helps in this situation is if you inhale and exhale five times slowly. Also, chocolate calms nerves... do you have any of that?" he urged. "Listen sir, you think I haven't tried that already? If I just simply eat chocolate and take a few deep breaths, my problems will go away?" She grew vexed. "Go away. That would help," she said begrudgingly. So the traveler departed.

But still, there had to be someone else out there who knew how to help her. So she waited again. Pretty soon, another passerby stopped and questioned the matter. "Excuse me, is everything alright?" a female voice asked. She turned and met eyes with the woman, "evidently not." she shot back. The woman exchanged her shocked look for a worried one. "Oh sweetie, here, take this gift card and this perfume," she pulled the two small objects out of her purse and held them out, "they will make you feel better and take your mind off things," she said. The broken girl on the bridge turned her face away and sighed hard. "Look lady, you think I haven't tried that already? Do you think that just giving me things will solve my problems?" She thought back to the previous traveler, "forget it okay? Just leave me alone," she uttered. So the woman walked away.

Looking down again she grew frustrated. "Everyone just wants to solve my problem. Nobody knows. Nobody understands," she mumbled to herself. "The next person who thinks they can solve my worries and fix my concerns will be the one who sees me do it."

"My dear friend, why are you standing there?" a soft voice interrupted. Still looking down dreadfully she replied, "because people think they understand!" she blurted, "all my life it's 'try this... try that...' and every time I fail to try, I'm tortured by my thoughts. Fired from jobs, loved ones leaving me, flunked classes, and unsuccessful love. Where does it end?" She continued to express her feelings and the traveler listened. She started to cry, "Aren't you going to try to fix me?" "No little one, because you are not broken," the traveler soothed. Tears still ran down the girl's face, "how do you know?" she asked. She turned to look at the traveler, immediately locking eyes with his kind, deeply sympathetic gaze. He smiled warmly. It was Jesus Christ. Immediately she was filled with peace. She ran to him and wrapped her trembling arms around him. In his arms she heard these words: "My friend, in order to properly fix something, you have to examine all the pieces. Then, even so, you'll find that most of the time, nothing's broken, just out of place." For the first time in years, she smiled. They walked away from the bridge together and he said, "you keep talking and I'll just listen." She smiled at him again, "that's something I haven't tried yet."

-Cale Kenneth Montoya (03-23-22)