Broken Pieces

In the summer of 2009, I had the privilege of attending a service at the First
United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City. My uncle and his family, who
hosted our family reunion and have attended that church for the past 10
years, had arranged for our family to meet before the regular service for a
special time of communion and we met in a small chapel inside the main
church building.
We were given some history of the church. Located almost directly across
the street from the Alfred P. Murrah building, the church was one of the
surrounding buildings that was severely damaged in the 1995 bombing.

It had taken 3 years to accomplished the renovation. And the church stands
as just one small example of how God can bring something good out of what
man had intended for evil.

My uncle pointed out a round stained glass window at the front of the
chapel. He explained that many of the church’s beautiful stained glass
windows from the 1920’s had been blown out in the explosion. We saw
pictures of the church with a huge board over the front window and a banner
which said – Our God reigns and we will remain!

We were told about how a piece from one of the windows depicting the head
of Jesus had been found intact in the rubble. This piece had become the
centerpiece of the new window. It was surrounded by 33 (significant of the
number of years Jesus was on earth) pieces of broken purple glass from the
original windows.

Around the edge of the window it says – The Lord takes broken pieces and
by his love makes us whole.

It was explained that, after the bombing, the church was blessed with so
much financial assistance from so many different sources that, as of 2007,
this fairly small congregation now owns an 11 million dollar property debt
free. Which I don’t think would be all that meaningful if the people of that
church were content to just sit and enjoy their beautiful building, but they
have used that tremendous blessing to bless others.

We were told the congregation was at one time around 800, but now there
were only about 300 meeting in that building. They don’t see that as a bad
thing, understanding that there is a whole community of people that Jesus
died for out there that are just never going to turn into stained glass window
kind of people. The attendance is down right now because so many people
have gone out from that church to get involved in ministry to those in need
or to start other churches, including one with an attendance of over 19,000.

My sister and I visited the memorial and museum which had been put
together to tell the story of the bombing. Individual stories were told of the
extreme human suffering caused by that tragedy, but there were also many
stories, like that of the church, that were stories of hope and rebirth and the
resiliency of the human spirit.

RoseDQ 2009