The Broken Bridge

When Division Tears Apart What Love Built Together

"He himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility" (Ephesians 2:14)

I'm thrilled to share the cover for my debut novel, The Broken Bridge—the first book in a trilogy that explores the deepest questions of human connection, division, and redemption through the lens of Christian allegory.

Like sunlight streaming through stained glass, this story illuminates timeless truths through the prism of narrative. At its heart, The Broken Bridge asks a question that echoes through every human soul: When the foundations of our world crumble, when relationships shatter like glass against stone, how do we find our way back to wholeness?

When Two Became One

The story opens in a world where unity wasn't just an ideal—it was a living reality. Picture two thriving communities, Eastlight and Westshore, joined by a magnificent bridge that served as more than mere transportation. This wasn't simply a crossing; it was the beating heart of civilization itself.

On this bridge, children from both shores played together, their laughter echoing over waters that connected rather than divided. Scholars debated under shady alcoves while families who had once been strangers now broke bread at communal tables. Gardens flourished, tools were shared freely, and songs were born from the harmony of diverse voices united in common purpose.

It was here that Fidel and Verita fell in love—their romance blossoming like the flowers that adorned the bridge's terraced gardens. Their wedding was planned for the bridge's center, a symbol of two becoming one, a testament to love's power to unite what might otherwise remain divided.

The ancient proverb etched on the bridge's cornerstone captured this truth: "In the eyes of the Maker, no one is foreign; only family not yet met."

This was paradise as God intended—community flourishing, love multiplying, creation singing in harmony.

When the Earth Shook

But paradise, it seems, was more fragile than anyone imagined.

Without warning, the earth convulsed. The bridge—that symbol of unity, that testament to human achievement, that sacred space where love had flourished—cracked, twisted, and plummeted into the churning waters below. In an instant, what had taken generations to build was reduced to twisted metal and broken stone.

The physical destruction was devastating enough, but the spiritual earthquake that followed proved even more catastrophic. Separated by rushing waters that now seemed as wide as eternity, the communities began to fracture from within. Trust crumbled like mortar in winter. Hope grew thin as morning mist. Love itself seemed to drain away like water through broken vessels.

Fidel and Verita found themselves on opposite shores, their wedding day transformed into a day of mourning, their future together suddenly as uncertain as smoke in wind. Yet something remarkable emerged from their desperation: each night, they began signaling across the darkness with lanterns, their lights dancing across the void like prayers thrown into an abyss.

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life" (Proverbs 13:12)

Six Attempts, Six Failures

What follows is a masterclass in human nature's response to brokenness. One by one, six different figures arrive in Eastlight, each promising to rebuild what was lost, each representing a different path humanity takes when trying to restore what sin has shattered.

There's Regulus, the master builder who demands perfect adherence to law—every measurement precise, every standard absolute. His bridge crumbles because perfection without grace becomes a burden too heavy for human shoulders to bear.

Sophia arrives with scrolls of wisdom, building bridges of reason and knowledge. Yet for all her intellectual brilliance, her structure fails when theory meets the stubborn reality of a fallen world.

Ritus brings ceremony and tradition, wrapping the work in ritual significance. But empty religious forms, however beautiful, cannot bear the weight of genuine connection.

Altruia offers herself in service, her hands never idle, her heart never closed to need. Yet even the purest human compassion has limits, and service without a deeper source eventually exhausts itself.

Then comes Optimus, radiating confidence and promising that belief alone can overcome any obstacle. His bridge becomes a monument to human pride—spectacular in appearance but built on the shifting sand of self-deception.

Finally, Metamorphia arrives teaching that truth itself is malleable, that we can recreate ourselves according to our desires. Her bridge collapses because structures built on subjective truth cannot withstand objective reality.

Six attempts. Six failures. Each more devastating than the last.

Through it all, Fidel and Verita maintain their nightly vigil, their lantern signals the only constant in a world of recurring catastrophe. Their faithful love becomes a beacon of hope even as each new failure sends more bodies into the river, more families into mourning, more hearts into despair.

The Ordinary One

Just when all hope seems lost, when the community has grown sick from deferred dreams and repeated disappointment, a seventh figure appears. Unlike the others, Geshriel carries no tools of authority, no scrolls of wisdom, no ceremonial objects. He's utterly ordinary—the kind of person you'd pass on the street without a second glance.

A carpenter by trade, he begins not with grand pronouncements but with quiet service. He repairs wells, mends roofs, sits with the forgotten and outcast. His approach seems almost anticlimactic after the spectacular failures that preceded him.

But there's something different about Geshriel's work. He builds bridges between hearts before laying a single stone in the river. He heals divisions within the community before addressing the chasm that separates the shores. Most remarkably, he speaks of becoming the bridge himself—of a cornerstone that can only be placed through ultimate sacrifice.

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15:13)

A Story for Our Time

The Broken Bridge doesn't simply tell an ancient story in new clothes—it holds up a mirror to our contemporary world. In an age where division seems to multiply like cracks in ice, where political tribalism tears families apart, where social media builds walls faster than any bridge can span them, we desperately need to remember what true unity looks like.

This allegory reminds us that human solutions to spiritual problems will always prove insufficient. Laws without love become legalism. Knowledge without wisdom breeds arrogance. Service without source burns out. Positive thinking without truth becomes delusion. Even the most sincere human efforts cannot bridge the fundamental chasm that sin has carved through the human heart.

Yet the story doesn't end in despair. In Geshriel's quiet revolution—his willingness to become what we most need rather than simply telling us what we should do—we glimpse the only foundation strong enough to bear the weight of genuine reconciliation.

The Journey Continues

The Broken Bridge is the first installment in a trilogy that will trace humanity's journey from division through redemption to ultimate restoration. Book two, The Living Bridge, and book three, The Eternal Bridge, will complete this meditation on love's power to overcome every obstacle that separates us from God and each other.

The first book releases in July, with subsequent volumes following quarterly—each one designed not merely to entertain but to transform, not simply to inform but to ignite hope in hearts that have grown weary of waiting.

This is Christian fiction that doesn't apologize for its faith but wears it like morning light—natural, necessary, and beautifully illuminating. It's a story that trusts readers to discover truth through beauty, to encounter the sacred through the ordinary, to find hope in the very places where hope seems most impossible.

As Fidel and Verita discovered in their darkest hours, some lights shine brightest in the deepest darkness. Some bridges become strongest when built not of stone and steel, but of sacrifice and love.

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)

The bridge has always been there. We just needed eyes to see it.

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The Broken Bridge releases July 2024. To stay updated on the trilogy's release schedule and explore more stories of faith, hope, and redemption, subscribe to this newsletter and join a community discovering that love really is stronger than division.