Choir Notes

Bent Nails and Broken Hearts

From Music and the Spoken Word

Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4308

Today we celebrate the promise of new life—the assurance that no matter the darkness and despair, always there is light and hope. Even after a long winter, spring always triumphs, and life is renewed: one blossom, one flower, one person at a time.

Spring is never more invigorating than in the life of an individual, especially one who has wondered if winter would ever end.

James was just such a man. After years of suffering the consequences of some poor choices, James decided to rebuild his life. It was a heart-rending process, but over time and with consistent effort, he began to feel hope and newness of life. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if his imperfect past would forever limit his future.

But then, while building a new home for his family, James had a life-changing insight. He remembered his grandfather showing him how to carefully pound out the kinks in old, bent nails so they could be used again. And so he gathered discarded nails around the building site and started to straighten them—one by one. He found that many of the rehabilitated nails worked just as well as new nails. In fact, it was the kinks in the shaft that helped them take hold of the wood.

James then realized that he was like a bent nail. He had needed straightening, but his difficult past had made him stronger and wiser. With gratitude in his heart, James keeps one of those straightened nails in his pocket as a reminder that he was given another chance at life. And he has made it his life’s mission to help others find the hope he has found.

No matter what your life is like now, always there is hope. Bent nails can be repaired. Broken hearts can be healed. Lives can be made whole.

The Lord’s promise "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10) reaches into the eternities. New hope and new life can come to us all.