The Broken Bridge: A Christian Allegory
by Mike Cleveland
ASIN: B0FH365HJT
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I wept often while writing this book. Not from sadness, but from the overwhelming beauty of what I was discovering in the allegory as it unfolded. Fidel and Verita's faithful love across the impossible divide became, for me, a picture of Christ's love for His bride, the church. Their nightly signals through the darkness reminded me of our prayers reaching toward the One who never stops calling back to us.
The gospel has always been, for me, "the power of God unto salvation," as Paul writes in Romans. It's not just information to be conveyed, but transformation to be experienced. Throughout my ministry, I've watched this power change lives in ways that never cease to amaze me. But I began to wonder: could the same truths that transform lives when preached from a pulpit also transform hearts when woven into story?
The idea for "The Broken Bridge" came during a difficult season in our community's life. I watched as various well-meaning approaches to solving our problems—each containing elements of truth—somehow fell short of bringing the healing we desperately needed. It struck me that this pattern repeats throughout human history: we try law, knowledge, ritual, service, positive thinking, and self-transformation, and while each has its place, none can bridge the fundamental gap between where we are and where we long to be.
The six failed bridge-builders aren't villains—they're sincere people offering genuine gifts. Each contains truth, but none can accomplish what only sacrificial love can achieve.
Writing Geshriel's character was both the most challenging and most sacred part of this process. How do you portray the love of Christ without diminishing its mystery? I found myself praying through every scene, asking for wisdom to honor both the story and the truth it represents. When I wrote the scenes of His suffering and death, I could barely see the keyboard through my tears—not because the story was sad, but because the love it reflected was so overwhelmingly beautiful.
The seven-year separation between Fidel and Verita wasn't arbitrary. Seven is the biblical number of completion, and their reunion happens in the seventh year. Those years of faithful signaling across the darkness represent every prayer whispered in doubt, every moment of faith maintained despite circumstances, every heart that continues to believe in love even when love seems absent.
This book represents a new chapter in my calling to share the gospel, but the heart remains the same. Whether through spoken word or written story, my deepest desire is to help people encounter the transformative love of Jesus Christ. Fiction allows me to explore the emotional landscape of that encounter in ways that straight teaching sometimes cannot.
My prayer for every reader is that they will see themselves somewhere in this story—perhaps in Fidel's faithful waiting, perhaps in the community's repeated disappointments, perhaps in the various builders' sincere but insufficient efforts. And when they meet Geshriel, I pray they will recognize the One who has been calling their name across every divide, the One whose love is strong enough to span any separation.
The gospel truly is the power of God.