When your heart breaks, it's as if there's a hole inside your soul. A hollow, aching feeling begins to overwhelm you, sometimes followed by tears or rage or absolute nothingness.
When your heart breaks, your world goes a little bit dimmer. Nothing is as sweet anymore, how could it when it feels as if your heart is gaping wide open? How could you laugh as loud when the suppressed tears weigh your voice down? How can your favorite food taste as good when every bite is tainted by grief and disappointment? How can you have a restful night of sleep when your mind is swirling with "what ifs" and memories?
When your heart breaks, your vision narrows, clouded by hurt and regret and sorrow. The "big pictures" seems shattered, irreplaceable, unfixable. Looking outside the pain seems absolutely impossible, considering pain is the only emotion you're familiar with at the moment. Besides, how could you? How do you look outside of the situation that rocked your world? How can you believe in love again, in a brighter future, when the one person who was supposed to love you didn't? How can you move on when you gave your all?
When your heart breaks, a loneliness follows, one that can only be described as crying alone under your comforter or sitting alone in your car, resisting the urge to sob or scream. No one seems to understand, and the hurt is absolutely isolating.
This is what happens when my heart breaks.
But.
Light can't shine unless there's cracks to shine through. A broken heart, a gaping wound, opens a space for the Lord's grace to radiate throughout.
I once heard that Jesus used His pain to reveal His promises, and I'm learning that that's true in our lives as well. Our pain has a purpose, and if we lean into the Father in the midst of the hardest moments, we will eventually see the light shine through. His glory is made perfect in our weakness, and although it's not fun, it's an honor that He has chosen us to bear that burden.
There's a refining that happens in the fire, only in the fire, that exposes His glory but also transforms us. Without that hurt, there wouldn't be the healing necessary to refocus our hearts on Jesus and realign ourselves with the Lord. We would miss out on an intimacy with the Almighty unlike any other and an opportunity to be transformed into His image Our faith wouldn't have the chance to mature, to grow up, to prove that we're in it, we're here for Jesus and not just for the good times but for the bad times too. There's no healing without hurt, no love without loss, no trust without doubts, and that's what happens in the fire.
So when your heart breaks, whether that means little cracks that spread slowly or a giant crater broke you suddenly, don't forget that the broken places are the perfect places for the Lord to shine through. Don't forget that you don't have to carry the blame, that you are more than what has happened to you and you are more than the hurt that you've experienced. Don't forget that the Lord didn't choose this for you, but He chooses you in the midst of it, and He loves you even when your idea of love is a little bit fragile and messy right now. Don't forget that this won't last forever, but it's only a chapter in your story, a turn you have to take to get the good part.
Allow yourself to admit that you're here, that this place feels dark and scary and endless. Covering up bullet wounds with band-aids never words, and neither does attempting to cover up hurt with happy faces. Be here and feel it and process through it and work on it and give it up to the Lord, but please don't try to brush past it. Please don't pretend that you're over it, that it didn't hurt, that it didn't matter, that it's all okay now. It's okay that it's not okay now, not yet anyways. One day, it will be.
One day, your mind won't be quite so mean to you and your own thoughts won't sting so bad. One day, you'll smile and you'll know it's real, you'll know that you mean it. One day, your heart won't be quite so tender and you'll learn how to love big again.
One day, this is what we have to look forward to.
So let's hold on, just a little bit longer. Let's not give up or give in, because isn't that what the devil wants? For his plan of heartbreak pain to succeed? No, we can't let that happen. God is greater and He has more in store, and this will not be the final page in our story. It will not.
I'm going to be so honest guys - I wrote the first half of this blog post a while ago, and the things weighing on my heart were so dark and heavy that I had to get it out. This post might be too dark and heavy to post, but I recently rediscovered it, and I cried as I finished it and reread it over and over again. This is so vulnerable, so much, but I didn't want to leave it unfinished. I wanted there to be purpose, to be hope and a little bit of light inside of all of the darkness that this writing was. And no one may ever read it, and that's okay, but for my own sake and for the testimony that I know God is writing, I wanted there to be intention in the midst of all of the processing. I didn't want that pain to go to waste.
And if you do get to read this, I hope that it doesn't resonate with you, that these feelings are foreign and this struggle isn't one that you've faced. But if it is, I love you, and Jesus loves you, and it's not over yet. We have to keep going, healing, holding on, together.
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