VT-Mustard Seed > Skits-n-Such > Broken Hearts Anonymous

Moderator:: (puffing) Glad to see that you’re all here (looks around). I recognize all but one of you—so I guess we’ll need to do a round of introductions first. I’m sorry I’m a bit late, but I just got back from a seminar in Dallas on “The Dixie Chick Syndrome—why Southern Belles are such Dingalings about Love.” It was quite good, actually...but I digress. Let’s see, introductions...we really should have name tags. Jennifer, could you start?
Jennifer:: I guess if I have to. (sighs) My name is Jennifer and I have a broken heart. (begins to cry) My boyfriend fell in love with Maggie and will hardly talk to me now. We’re coming here to see if we can work things out between us.
Tom:: And I’m Tom, Jen’s boyfriend. I guess I should say I have a broken heart now, too. Maggie threw a rod at the races last night or I’d be there instead of here. She’s been such a beautiful car...I almost had a sponsor for her (also begins to cry).
Moderator:: They go to show that love is not “auto”-matic. Who’s next?
Casey:: Well I’m Casey. I’m broken hearted because I saw this gorgeous life insurance salesman and I think I’m in love, but he just won’t return my calls. I’ve even left him a voice mail message...
Judy:: I’m Judy and I’m here because I was a member of the “Lonely Hearts Anonymous Group.” We decided that if we kept meeting we wouldn’t be lonely anymore, so there wouldn’t be anything to talk about, so we stopped. And that left me broken hearted (begins to cry).
Moderator:: Some of these issues will require a lot of processing, I’m sure. Now, who’s the stranger sitting next to you?
Stranger:: You mean me? My name’s actually Sam and I’m here because I saw your sign out there and thought it said “Broken Hearse Anonymous”—I just wondered who was here, a bunch of funeral directors?, and what you might talk about. I assume business must be dead, as usual. Heh, heh, heh.
Casey:: (lights up) You know, you sound just like the life insurance guy’s voice mail. What did you say your name was? Maybe we have something in common.
Moderator:: Take it easy, Casey. It’s no wonder you struck out before. We’ve still got a couple to go.
Joe:: My name is Joe. I’m broken hearted because my daughter looked at me and said, “I hate you.” A few minutes later she came and asked me if I could take her to the mall. I’m really confused. Is it me or has she been kidnapped and replaced by a clone from the evil Trade Federation?
Joy:: (laughing) Probably the latter. And keep your eyes peeled for little green munchkins with pointy ears, wielding light sabers—at least you’ll know help is coming! By the way, Sam, I’m Joy. I’m an orphan. For a long time I was broken hearted about that, too. I wished I had parents. I was jealous about all the kids I knew who had parents—even mean parents. At least they had someone to call “daddy” and “mommy”. I didn’t have anyone.
Stranger:: You don’t seem so broken hearted now. What happened?
Tom:: She fell in love with drag racing, like me. Who’s got time for all that gushy stuff when the adrenaline’s pumping, the wheels are screeching, the motor’s purring...That’s the life!
Jennifer:: Didn’t you just say Maggie threw a rod, Mister Love is a Monkey Wrench?
Tom:: (downcast) Oh yeah.
Moderator:: Well, thanks for throwing one in here. I think the Stranger here had asked a question. What was it?
Casey:: He wanted to know why she wasn’t so broken hearted now. Right, Sam? You can ask me, that too, if you want...
Stranger:: Hmmm...so, Joy, what happened?
Joy:: I’m not sure what you know about orphanages. Anyway, people used to come by to see if there was any child they might want to adopt. I’d always try to put on my best behavior, wear my best clothes when I saw someone new, and be as polite as I could when they talked to me. But always it was someone else who was chosen, some other child that got to have a new mommy and daddy.
Judy:: I’ll bet that made you feel pretty lonely.
Joy:: That’s true. It was hard. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Joe:: Don’t tell us that my daughter was there saying, “I hate you!” (the group chuckles).
Joy:: No. They treated us pretty well. But one day I was the lucky child. You can’t imagine how happy I was. I was finally going to have a mommy and daddy and a home of my own. It was the best day of my life when I climbed into their car and went home with them. But it didn’t last.
Stranger:: I think I can guess. They made your life miserable, forced you to eat chopped liver or stay in a room under the stairs and make friends with owls.
Moderator:: I get it, Mary Potter. Stranger, you’re pretty quick but you sound as though you might have some repressed aggressions from your own childhood. We might be able to help you with that.
Stranger:: Thanks, but I do want to hear why Joy isn’t broken hearted.
Joy:: Well, older children like me were taken to homes on a pre-adoptive trial. If things didn’t work out, we would be returned to the orphanage. I know I tried to be the kind of girl I should. But one day I came home from school and saw my suitcase in the hall at the foot of the stairs. My mommy and daddy were taking me back. It was a very long ride.
Jennifer:: That sounds worse than the day Tom brought Maggie home from the junkyard.
Joe:: Or my teenager’s emotional schizophrenia.
Judy:: Or how it must feel to be the last cookie in the cookie jar.
Moderator:: Hunh? Oh, I get it...all the rest get taken and it must wonder if it did something wrong, or had too many raisins, right?
Joy:: (sadly) It didn’t happen just once.
Stranger:: Something must have turned things around for you.
Casey:: (looking slyly at Stranger) Maybe it was some life insurance salesman in shining armor like you, Sam.
Joy:: No. But God used it.
Moderator:: Uh, oh. Normally, we just acknowledge that there’s a “higher power” out there in these groups. Are you saying that God was actually personally involved in your life?
Joy:: Certainly.
Tom:: Do you think he could help me get Maggie back on her feet again?
Jennifer:: (stage whisper) Not if my prayers are working!
Stranger:: (to Tom and Jennifer) Do you mind? (to Joy) So how do you think God was using your troubles? Don’t you think that was a little cruel? You were just a girl. All by yourself.
Joy:: It was hard. I was sad. But the orphanage was run by some very caring religious people who made sure that we each went to Sunday School and church and had our basic needs met. In Sunday School I heard about Jesus, about God’s great love for boys and girls. They told us that he promised to be Father to the orphan, husband to the widow. At first that made me kind of mad. I wanted a daddy and mommy with skin on them, not just some great big God out there somewhere.
Casey:: And I want more than just a conversation with the life insurance guy, too, Sam.
Stranger:: I’ll keep that in mind when I start looking for the exit. Joy, I’m still not clear what changed. Did you just grow out of it?
Joe:: Which is what they say will happen with my daughter’s hate-o-mania.
Joy:: (laughing) No. But I kept listening. The Bible says that God so loved the world that he sent his Son. It says, that his love is so deep that you can’t touch the bottom of it and so wide you can’t drift out of it. We were taught that his love reaches to the most out of the way places like our orphanage and that he cares so much that he gave up his own Son, Jesus to die on a cruel cross in payment for sin so that we can experience his love personally. The Bible says he can heal the broken hearted. And all we have to do, is ask.
Casey:: Which is the motto, I live by. If you don’t ask, you won’t receive, right Sam?
Stanger:: Sheesh. So that’s it? You asked?
Joy:: Yes. True to his Word, “Ask and you will receive”, and “As many as received him to them he gave the power to become children of God.” “Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” That’s what I wanted and what I asked for. God used my longing for love, for a mommy and daddy, along with my being in an orphanage to cause me to reach out to him, for a love that will not ever let me go. In fact, He came back to the orphanage with me.
Moderator:: So you might say, your broken heart was good for you?
Joy:: That’s how I see it now.
Tom:: Are the introductions over yet? I want to talk some more about Maggie....
Collectively:: Oh brother!

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VT-Mustard Seed

Broken Hearts Anonymous

by Rev. Alan R. Wolcott