A BROKEN HEART

Poets have written about it, songs have been composed as the results of it; hearts broken over broken relationships, death, suffering, misunderstandings and emotional pain on many levels. Everyone will experience these types of grief that we often refer to as, “heartbreak” at one time or another. For the most part, many of us will have our hearts broken many times throughout our lives by others as well as the wrong choices that we or someone dear to us makes yet, when it’s happening to you, it is so very easy to feel like no one else in the world has ever felt the same way… when you are in that moment. Sometimes, we even experience secondhand heartbreak that can be as devastating. For both are pretty common but are dealt with in much the same way.
Some people, with high expectations from themselves (that would be me) are prone to heartbreak. While others appear to have it all together but inside are falling apart.  I know and have known parents who face heartbreak because of an irresponsible child causing an entire war-torn family to struggle with the pain of broken hearts. The word broken heart is a common metaphor used to describe the intense emotional pain or suffering one feels after losing a loved one, through death, divorce, breakup, moving, being rejected, or other means. At first, it seems nothing can help. With time soothing words can help to heal broken hearts and mend relationships. Kind words can help alleviate the pain that one feels during those extreme times of hurt, especially if administered in love and not judgment. Psalm 69:20 says …”Insults have broken my heart and left me weak, I looked for sympathy but there was none; I found no one to comfort me.” In this Psalm, David says that insults had broken his heart, not loss or pain. Whether insult or rejection like David felt as he sought friendship with Saul, just about anything can break a persons heart.

Even today I received an email from a precious friend who is agonizing over a child that has decided to go their own way now that she is old enough and is experiencing the freedom of being away at college and from the authority that she has lived under all her life. While it is one of the hardest things a parent will ever have to do….sometimes, we have to accept the fact that it may only be through their wrong decisions that they will find God and return….or as the prodigal son did…find out that home really is better than the far away country that they may be seeking right now in the oat field where they are sowing.

Upon her asking my advice because of my own experiences as a parent, I shared with her these things that has helped me in the past and still does through the heartache that I have experienced in raising a child that pursued the wayward country. It may sound too easy yet they are the very things that have sustained me in those times and as I said, still do. But through it all, the Lord constantly reminds me to love without condemnation….allowing God to convict and guide her  heart just like He does mine. I must daily trust this to God and not try to be her or anyone’s Holy Spirit. My job as a parent to an adult now is to simply stand ready when they ask, and they will…  being sure to give Godly advice not only by what I say, but how I myself am living. Because my actions are always going to speak louder than my words of wisdom. My release through the hard times has come through in three ways: my tears, my talking about it to the Lord, and through time  …they have been the key factors that have helped me to endure my moments of heart break.  For the pain….I have had to learn the stages of churning about it, over and over, burning about it, being angry at them and angry at God and angry at myself…. learning from it, finding God’s perspective on it and then turning from it, releasing it daily relinquishing it to God…. and that my friend, is where you get the victory.

Happiness will only return to replace a broken heart as we make the effort to fight against it and not let it overtake us. If you are experiencing heart ache today sweet friend may I encourage you to keep yourself busy with other things, don’t waste your time dwelling on the sadness that entangles you with your heartache and trying to figure out how you can change people or the situation. But allow God the time to do what He needs to do in every life involved.

As I shared with my friend, any great book or godly counsel that you find on this subject will ultimately encourage you to let go….and let God! While that may sound petty, it is the truth. Pain is brought on suddenly….but it always takes time to diminish, and that is okay. You must allow yourself time to grieve over your pain, but do not take it into a closet and hide there with it. Fight it! The more we dwell on it, the more we worry over it and the more discouraged we will make ourselves. We must meet every disappointment in our lives as God sees them, not as we do! For He has the eternal perspective and overall picture of the situation and not the tunnel view that we see in that moment.

Dear friend as you may have often times heard me say it is always worth repeating…pray for and encourage godly people to encounter your husbands, your wives and sons and your daughters as well as your grandchildren. Pray that every where they turn they will be encountered with Truth…because that is the only thing that will set them free and bring change to their world….love them and pray for them yes….but, be a godly example to them by your own lifestyle….don’t give up….don’t you dare give up on them! They need our unconditional love, grace and undeserved mercy! Remembering that we do too!

Loving you today!
Bren