When Bridges Fall

Why We Keep Building Walls Instead of Ways Across

A meditation on division, healing, and the love that makes all things new

---

We live in a world of broken bridges.

Look around you. Notice the invisible chasms running through families, friendships, communities, nations. The gaps where love once flowed freely now echo with the hollow sound of words we can't take back, trust we can't rebuild, and connections we thought would last forever.

But here's what I've learned from my own life, and from writing a story about six failed attempts to rebuild what was broken: we keep trying the wrong solutions.

The Seductive Myth of Perfect Solutions

Let me tell you about six approaches that promise to fix everything—and why they all crumble under pressure.

The Law-Builder's Trap

"If everyone just followed the rules..."

We've all met this person. Maybe we've been this person. The one who believes that perfect standards create perfect outcomes. They measure everything twice, demand flawless execution, and wonder why people keep failing their impossible tests.

• The promise: Order through perfection

• The reality: Nobody can meet impossible standards

• The result: Division between the "worthy" and "unworthy"

Sound familiar? This is the voice that whispers you're not good enough, smart enough, disciplined enough to deserve approval and connection.

The Knowledge-Seeker's Mirage

"If we just understood each other better..."

These are the intellectuals, the therapists, the communication experts who believe every problem can be solved through deeper understanding. They create systems, develop theories, and genuinely believe that perfect knowledge leads to perfect relationships.

• The promise: Unity through understanding

• The reality: Knowledge without love becomes cold analysis

• The result: Paralysis by analysis while hearts remain untouched

You can understand someone completely and still be unable to bridge the gap between you.

The Ritual-Keeper's Performance

"If we just honored the traditions..."

Every family, organization, and culture has these guardians of ceremony. They believe that if we just follow the sacred rituals—holiday gatherings, corporate retreats, religious services—everything will be restored to harmony.

• The promise: Connection through shared ceremonies

• The reality: Empty rituals without genuine relationship

• The result: Beautiful performances hiding broken hearts

How many holiday dinners have you endured where everyone played their part but nobody felt truly seen?

The Service-Giver's Burnout

"If we just help each other more..."

These beautiful souls pour themselves out in service, believing that practical help will heal every wound. They organize meal trains, volunteer endlessly, and exhaust themselves trying to serve their way to wholeness.

• The promise: Healing through helpful action

• The reality: Even genuine service has limits when the helper burns out

• The result: Noble efforts that can't sustain themselves indefinitely

Service without a source becomes depletion.

The Self-Believer's Delusion

"If we just believed in ourselves more..."

The motivational speakers, the positive psychology experts, the manifestation coaches—they promise that the right mindset can overcome any obstacle, including relational ones.

• The promise: Victory through mental strength

• The reality: Reality doesn't always conform to our beliefs

• The result: Spectacular crashes when positive thinking meets immovable objects

You can't simply visualize your way across some chasms.

The Shape-Shifter's Confusion

"If we just became our authentic selves..."

The newest solution: transform your identity until you feel whole. Become whoever you want to be, demand that others affirm your chosen reality, and believe that authentic self-expression will bridge every gap.

• The promise: Unity through unlimited self-creation

• The reality: Truth and reality matter; not everything can be transformed by declaration

• The result: Confusion about what's real and what's performance

When everyone's truth becomes equally valid, actual truth becomes impossible to find.

The Pattern Hidden in Plain Sight

Here's what struck me as I wrote about these six failed approaches: they all focus on human effort to solve a problem that goes deeper than human solutions can reach.

Each approach contains genuine wisdom:

• Rules and order do matter

• Understanding is valuable

• Traditions can connect us

• Service does heal

• Positive attitudes help

• Authenticity matters

But none of them address the fundamental issue: something is broken at the core of human nature itself.

We are divided beings trying to create unity. We are selfish creatures attempting to build selfless connections. We are finite humans reaching for infinite solutions.

It's like trying to perform surgery on yourself—you can see the problem, you might even have the right tools, but you can't be both the patient and the surgeon.

The Bridge That Changes Everything

In my story, a seventh figure arrives. Unlike the others, he makes no grand promises. He carries no impressive credentials. He doesn't even look like a solution.

Geshriel (meaning "Bridge of God") simply begins serving, healing, and speaking truth with such love that hearts start to change before any physical bridge is built.

But here's the stunning twist: the bridge can only be completed when the builder becomes the cornerstone himself.

Through willing sacrifice—dying to become the very connection others need—Geshriel accomplishes what all human effort could not. His death becomes the bridge. His love becomes the foundation that cannot be shaken.

Why This Story Matters for Your Life

This isn't just allegory. This is the pattern of the universe itself.

The divisions in your relationships, your community, your own heart—they're symptoms of a deeper separation that only divine love can bridge.

Human effort maintains the problem while divine grace provides the solution.

Consider:

• That relationship you've tried to fix through better communication, clearer boundaries, or changed behavior

• The community divisions you've attempted to heal through dialogue, education, or activism

• The internal conflicts you've battled with therapy, self-help, or personal transformation

What if the very trying is part of the problem?

What if surrender to a love greater than your own is the answer you've been missing?

The Love That Builds Lasting Bridges

Real transformation happens when we stop trying to be our own saviors and allow perfect love to do what imperfect humans cannot.

This love:

• Sees you completely and loves you anyway

• Forgives without counting the cost

• Serves without expecting return

• Sacrifices willingly for your restoration

• Builds bridges that death itself cannot destroy

This is the gospel. Not as religious concept, but as the ultimate reality about how broken things get fixed.

Jesus Christ—the real Geshriel—didn't come to give us better methods for bridging our gaps. He came to become the bridge himself, through his life, death, and resurrection.

His sacrifice creates what all our efforts cannot: permanent connection between earth and heaven, human and divine, broken and whole.

Your Invitation

If you're tired of bridges that collapse, relationships that crumble, and solutions that ultimately fail—there's hope.

Not hope in trying harder, but hope in surrendering to the Love that has already built the bridge.

The gospel isn't about earning your way across the chasm. It's about discovering that the way has already been made, the price has already been paid, and the bridge stands ready for you to cross.

Today.

---

A Personal Note

Everything I've shared here flows from my own journey of discovering that human wisdom—no matter how sincere, sophisticated, or well-intentioned—ultimately hits its limits when facing the deepest human needs.

My purpose in writing isn't primarily to sell books, but to point you toward the greatest story ever told: that God's love bridges every gap that sin has created.

The Broken Bridge will be available on Amazon within 2-4 weeks, followed by The Living Bridge this October, and The Eternal Bridge in January 2026. After completing this trilogy, I'll be releasing a modernized, tech-savvy love story based on the Book of Ruth.

But my real hope isn't that you'll read my books—it's that you'll encounter the One who inspired me to write them by His love filling my heart (Romans 5:5). The Bridge-Builder whose love never fails, whose sacrifice never expires, and whose bridges never fall.

Because some gaps can only be crossed by grace.

---

What bridge in your life needs the foundation that only divine love can provide? The answer might be simpler—and more transformative—than you think.