Restoring What's Broken

Some broken things aren't meant to be thrown away—they're meant to be rebuilt, piece by painful piece. When Ethan Miller walks through the sanctuary doors of New Humanity for the first time in years, he's not looking for applause. He's looking for a second chance. Once a respected member of the church, Ethan fell hard—losing himself to addiction, regret, and a shame that chased him far from faith. Now sober and weathered by the road of recovery, he returns not to reclaim a platform, but to wield a putty knife and a prayer. The sanctuary is falling apart—peeling plaster, creaking floors, faded pews—and so is Ethan, in ways no one can see. As he scrapes away the physical layers of decay, he confronts the emotional wreckage he left behind. Haunted by the past, wary of the eyes that remember who he was, and stunned to see Rachel Meyers—the one woman whose kindness once cut through his darkness—Ethan is forced to face not just the crumbling walls of the church, but the ruins of his own heart. Restoring What's Broken is a redemptive Christian novel steeped in second chances, emotional honesty, and spiritual grit. With prose as rich and layered as the sanctuary Ethan helps rebuild, this story invites readers into a sacred space where grace meets labor, forgiveness takes muscle, and healing comes one scraped wall, one vulnerable conversation, one surrendered day at a time. For readers who believe in God's power to rebuild what shame tried to destroy, this is more than a story—it's a testimony in fiction form.