The Blessing of a Broken Heart

There's a blessing in having a broken heart.  I know this may sound strange, but I know it to be true in my own life.  In fact, I believe it is true for anyone following the spiritual path.  For believers it is important to remember that Christ did not come to remove our brokenness.  Anyone who thinks that following Jesus means you'll never cry or experience pain or illness or setbacks and difficulty is dead wrong!  For Christ did not come to remove our brokenness but to dwell more fully within it.  We are not blessed or broken; we are blessed and broken.  Christ came to dwell in our brokenness; to make our broken places his dwelling place.  So a broken heart with all of the grief and heaviness that comes with it is an opportunity to sink deeper into Jesus and for Jesus to sink deeper into us.  For this I am grateful.  Sometimes the only thing that can water the soil of our faith is our tears.

This is what I've been experiencing recently.  Facing some heavy disappointment I turned to God in prayer and felt the love and comfort only God can provide.  I said "God I lift my broken heart to You" and immediately felt God's response: God's abiding indwelling presence.  When I look back over my life I can't imagine how I would have survived if not for God carrying me through the hard times.  Over the years I've discovered that a heart that is broken has more room for God to dwell in.  A broken heart can be the catalyst for intimacy and drive us straight into the arms of God where we realize everything we need can be found there.  It reminds us of our need for God and allows us to rediscover the comfort and encouragement only God can bring.  For this I am grateful.

So when you find yourself with a heart that is breaking know that you're in a good place because a heart that can be broken is a heart that can be touched, that can be filled, that can be moved by the suffering of others, by the sound of laughter, by the simple sensation of a gentle passing breeze.  A heart that can be broken is the perfect place for God to dwell.  We are often ashamed of our brokenness, our weakness, our shortcomings.  Not God; for our brokenness is the place where God desires to dwell the most.  From God's perspective it's the best room in the house!  It's the place that God can mend, heal, restore and cause to expand.  You are blessed even in your brokenness so allow God to dwell in your broken places. It will make all the difference.  It has for me time and time again and is so even now.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God".  1 Corinthians 2:3-4

Following the Way,

Kevin

Where is God?

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

These are not the words of a person who has no faith.  These are not the words of a person who doesn't know God.  These are the words of Jesus in the midst of agonizing pain on the cross in Matthew 27:46 and I'm so glad he said them!  Why?  Because knowing that even Jesus felt this way at least once enables us to be gentle with ourselves when we feel the same way.  Sometimes in the midst of great pain and difficulty we don't feel God around us at all.  We feel forgotten and forsaken.  We can't help but ask, "Where is God?"  Often we feel guilty or make others feel guilty for asking such a question, but this question is an authentic part of the journey with God.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus was not the first person to ever say this or feel this way.  He is quoting Psalm 22, written a thousand years before his time.  People on the journey have been wrestling with this for a very long time: the felt absence of God in the presence of real pain.  I don't believe that God disappears when we are hurting, but that sometimes the pain we experience in life is so great it becomes all that we can see, all that we can feel.  It can become so overwhelming and blind us to everything else.  When you have lost your mother to cancer and you're only a teenager, when you have had 3 miscarriages in a row but still no children, when the love of your life has left you and has shattered your heart to pieces, it is hard to feel God, hard to see God in your life, hard to believe that God is still there.

Feeling this way is ok.  Anyone on the journey will feel this way at one point or another.  Don't lie about it.  Don't pretend it's not there.  Don't feel guilty.  Feel what you're feeling and bring it all to God.  Your frustration, your disappointment, your anger, your rage, bring it all to God.  Take comfort in knowing that you are not alone in feeling what you're feeling.  For thousands of years people on the journey have been struggling with the exact same feelings.  You are not alone.

I don't know why life can be so painful at times, but in moments when life has broken my heart and I can't see God and I can't hear God and I can't feel God, I sit and I wait.  I know that feeling forsaken is not the same as being forsaken.  I know that  I am surrounded by a God that I sometimes cannot feel because the pain gets in the way. And if knowing this isn't enough I sit and I wait until it is.

Following the Way,
Kevin

I Believe

I believe because I cannot not believe. I cannot doubt the wind when it blows upon my face and whispers through the leaves of the trees. I cannot doubt the sun when its light hits my eyes and its warmth touches my skin anymore than I can doubt the water that surrounds me when I plunge into the ocean. I cannot doubt the God that moves within me anymore than I can doubt the existence of love, truth and beauty. God speaks. He shouts, he bellows, he whispers into the deepest crevices of my soul where no other sound can be heard and reaches down into the most inaccessible and inhospitable spaces of my heart where no one else desires to go.

I see God in the sunset. I feel God in every drop of rain that falls from heaven and waters the earth causing life to spring forth from what was once only dry ground. I hear God in the morning chirping of the birds, the lovely tiny sparrows flitting and flying about the trees, almost dancing upon the branches.

God is. Nothing else needs to be added. It is necessary for nothing else to be understood. The most ornately elaborated sophisticated theology cannot come close to capturing the simple and awesome beauty of this. God is. And God is the is-ness of all that is. Everything that is is because God is. The fish is free to swim because God is. The worshipper is free to worship because God is. Indeed the atheist is free to deny God because God is. All that is is because God is, from the single-celled bacterium to the dizzying complexities of the outer universe. All that is is because God is.

God is.  Nothing else could possibly be of greater importance. God is. Nothing else must be spoken.  God is.  Nothing else needs to be added,  except perhaps that God is love.

Following the Way,
Kevin