The Broken Pieces

By Brighton Ncube

The Broken Pieces provides a detailed description of how to deal with challenging life events. We live in a complex world full of suffering, despair, hopelessness, pandemics, poverty, and grief. It might look threatening and frightening, but knowing that the broken pieces can be put together again is the blessed hope that keeps us going. We understand that the entire world was broken into pieces by the pandemic. We lost a lot of loved ones, but the Lord was still in control, and we went through it. There is no situation that is too big for God to handle. Suicide rates and drug abuse continue to rise in our communities. People lose hope of living and look for an easy way out when their lives break into pieces. This book gives guidance on developing solid faith that will withstand all forms of loss and catastrophes, knowing that the broken pieces can be put back together. It provides a way of looking at every dire situation positively, identifying God's plan in all of it, and keeping a solid faith despite what circumstances look detects. There is hope in every case. There is no need to despair, worry, or give up on life. I hope this book will be a big blessing to you and your families and that you will share the good news with everyone, including those who have suffered the loss of loved ones. The world is out of control. We see death everywhere on our televisions and on the Internet. News bulletins report earthquakes and other catastrophic events, wars, suicides, kidnappings, human trafficking, and many other social ills, too many to mention. There is hope in all this, as we have a Savior who can put the broken pieces together again. Have faith in God. Lean not onto your understanding. Good always triumphs over evil. There is hope in every situation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887938066

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The Broken Pieces

Brighton Ncube

Copyright © 2023 Brighton Ncube

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88793-805-9 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-88793-806-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Have Faith in God

The King Who Wanted to Barbecue Humans

COVID-19 Storm

Zacchaeus, Come Down

Thou Art with Me

When Things Fall Apart

About the Author

Chapter 1

Have Faith in God

In 1977, it was my first time starting school. I was filled with excitement, as I was always hearing about how great school was. I envied my cousins wearing their uniforms and carrying their satchels with books to and from school. I always wished I would go to school with them. Little did I know the distance they had to travel to get to school. I was, however, ready for school because the test that one had to pass to be enrolled in missionary schools was to recite Psalms 23 and to be able to touch your left ear using your right hand as the hand went over your head. I am not sure what was the significance of being able to touch one's left ear as a condition to be enrolled in first grade.

I got all my immunization ready and was enrolled in first grade. Living in rural areas of Kezi in Zimbabwe meant schools were very few. There were schools that had been built by missionaries that were pretty far away from the villages. My primary school was ten kilometers away from home each way. It meant that we had to wake up very early to be on time at school. That's leaving home every day of the week at 5:00 a.m. to be at school by 7:30 a.m. when school started. Excitement for school quickly started to wear off. I so much started to miss sleeping in and spending time in the fields.

As if that was not enough, I started to experience bullying from the older boys in the village. They would take away our packed lunches, and we would watch them eat it. It was terrible to walk ten kilometers back from school on an empty stomach. The bullies warned us against reporting that they were taking our food and all torture activities they were inflicting on us. Our parents thought all was well and that we were enjoying school, while bigger boys or bullies from other villages took advantage of us. Each village had its own bully or what was called in our local Ndebele language ingqwele, which literally means boss. The bullies affected our learning to the extent that I would be thinking about what will happen after school and got distracted from my studies.

One thing the bullies would do was to make us fight. We would get at one of the small rivers, and they would ask each other of us to build two heaps of sand. You would stand in front of your heap. The heap represented your mother's two breasts. The bullies would then send one of the boys to any of the younger boys to go and kick and destroy the heaps of sand. A fight would then ensure because that meant someone had disrespected your mother. The bullies enjoyed the fights so much. To them, it was like a dogfight sport. If one of us got injured, they would coin all manner of lies on what we were going to tell our parents. They would, for example, tell us to say one fell from a tree or was hit by a charging bull on our way from school or whatever they thought would convince our parents.

In 1978, before schools were closed due to the liberation war that was intensifying, one of my cousin brothers was enrolled in the same school. He was a strong man and very protective of us. He heard that there were bullies who had been doing all manner of tortures on us and sought to revenge. Knowing that we now had a backup, we approached the bullies with confidence, and when they requested that we give them our lunches, we refused. They tried to start getting us to fight of which the bullies were amazed about our defiance. Even our language had changed, as we spoke with authority, knowing fully well that we now had a backup. As the bullies were about to start beating us up, my cousin appeared from the bushes and he beat up one of the bullies and the rest fled away. Next day, they were afraid of coming to school thinking that my cousin was still on their case and would want to revenge all the bullying that we had experienced. That was the end of the bullying, and we narrated to our parents what had been happening all along on our way to and from school. From henceforth, my two cousins acted as our big brothers. We felt safe in their presence, and all other villages boys were not afraid of us because they knew we now had our own ingqwele or bosses of the village.

This experience reminded me of the way we are bullied in our daily lives by the devil. The devil brings all sorts of suffering on earth. We live in existential despair. One day, it's a hurricane that kills thousands and destroys homes and infrastructure. The other day, the bullying comes in the form of a wrong diagnosis of cancer, HIV, diabetes, hypertension, multiple sclerosis, and all sorts of scary health conditions. They trouble our souls, as we often think our next step is death or losing a loved one. The devil will never rest in tormenting us. At times, we are expecting to give birth to a healthy, bouncing baby,