The Value of a Broken Guitar

By Aaron Greer Band • Aug 25th, 2008 • Category: Artists in Residence

Hi everyone, Aaron here from Aaron Greer Band. Right before Christmas of 2007, I walked into a local Guitar Center store (I’m a guitar player, I go there quite often). I walk in, and without taking 5 steps in the door, I see a brand new, Epiphone Les Paul - which generally costs about $650 - with a price tag of $50 on it. This stopped me dead in my tracks. As I carefully looked at it, I then realized why it was marked at $50 - the headstock of the guitar was broken, nearly completely off.

Apparently, the guitar was damaged in shipping, and I thought to myself, “What a shame, such a beautiful, brand-new guitar and it’s broken at its most important point.” In fact, it was broken so badly that the only thing holding the headstock onto the neck of the guitar were the strings. But something odd happened as I walked past this guitar. I really felt as if the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart, and it said “There’s value in that guitar”. And I said to myself, “Nah, can’t be. Even for $50, the guitar is unplayable.” So I dismissed it and went on to look at all the other bright, shiny new guitars.

But I couldn’t get this broken Epiphone out of my mind. So before I left the store, I went back looked at it again, how beautiful it was, yet how broken it was.

I left the store that day, and was kicking myself that I didn’t buy it for some reason.

I have a friend that repairs guitars for a living. In fact, I do a lot of graphic design work for him, and in turn, he does all my guitar work for me. We don’t charge each other anything for it. So, I called up my friend who repairs guitars and told him about this broken guitar… and asked him if he’d fix it for me if I bought it. In turn, he said, “Yeah, I’ll fix it… go get it… you’re crazy if you DON’T buy it.” And then I started coming up with every reason in the world not to buy it… I said “It’ll never stay in tune, it doesn’t come with a case, etc..” My friend assured me that once he was done with it, that’d you’d never know it was broken, and that, if anything, the guitar would only have a stronger bond where the split in the wood was because of the bond solution that he uses to fix broken headstocks.

So, I went back to the store the next day and offered the manager $40 for this guitar. He agreed and, if anything, seemed so glad to get rid of it. I walked out of the store, with this beautiful, broken guitar.

I turned it over to my friend, and as promised, I got it back about a month later, completely repaired. He was absolutely right - you couldn’t even tell it had ever been broken! I couldn’t believe what a tremendous job he had done on this guitar. In fact, the case I bought later on for this guitar actually cost MORE than the guitar itself!

When I look at this guitar now, I can’t help but think of what the Holy Spirit spoke to me when I first saw it in its broken state. That “there was VALUE in that guitar”. And over time, I thought of how Jesus looks upon our broken lives… our broken hearts… our broken souls…and yet still sees the value in each one of us.

It makes me think about when Jesus was choosing his apostles, and how He looked upon ordinary men, and saw the value in their friendship and their lives - enough to call them His closest friends.

It makes me think about how Jesus looked upon Simon (Peter) and saw something greater in Simon that he could have never seen in himself - enough to give him a completely new name!

It makes me think about how He changed the broken Saul to the Apostle Paul and set him on a new path - one of grace, one of healing, one of value.

It makes me think about all the times in my life when I felt completely broken due to choices I’ve made and things I had done. And yet, Jesus - the great healer, the very Son of God - looked upon my broken life and saw the value in it - when I saw NO value in my life.

There are so many times when we look upon our lives and wonder “How can I be of any use - how can I be of any value, let alone to God”.

But in the hands of the Great Healer - the Great Physician - Jesus - our broken lives have more value than we’ll ever know.

Jesus sees in us something greater than we see in ourselves… He sees the value in us for His kingdom, for His purpose.

Blessings,
aaron greer

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