Let Your Heart Break

Broken heart
noun
despair; disillusionment; devastating sorrow, especially from disappointment

In my personal experience, a broken heart has never been something I chose.  The pain that has to be endured and walked through during heart break can feel so burdensome, so heavy, so uncomfortable and so unexpected that it makes you want to run away, hide, cower, and even deny it exists.

Right now, my heart is breaking on a daily basis.  The Lord has my family actively walking through a time in our lives that is stretching me and pulling my soul and heart in such extreme directions that at moments, I want to run away from it all.

I didn't realize what I was getting myself into once I said, "Here I am, Lord." God is walking me through a season of dependence on Him that I've never been through before.  He is waking up the deepest part of my soul.  Some of you may wonder why I've chosen this.  Why would I choose to submit and release all of my comforts, desires and aspirations to God?  Why would I make my family walk through this?

My eyes are being opened to things I never saw, felt or acknowledged before.  My heart is breaking.  It is breaking into a million little pieces for a million different reasons.  It is breaking for the well off, the comfortable, the lacking, the poor, the sinful, the prideful, the moms, the dads, the children, the Christians, the lost, the educated, the uneducated, the abused, the healed, strangers, friends and family members.   My soul is developing so much strength that I can almost feel it crawling out of my skin because I am getting so filled with love and compassion for all of God's children.  My heart is pounding fiercely in my chest on a daily basis and I am barely scratching the tip of the iceberg of what it means to really need God and trust in His plan.  But you guys, can I just tell you that if my heart break is any indication of what God feels when He looks at his lost children, oh man! Oh how He loves us, oh how He longs for us to seek Him and know Him.  His heart is hurting for you.  His heart is bursting at the seams for each of us. 

All of this is absolutely WRECKING me.  I am literally being emptied of myself and filling up on the well of Jesus Christ.  His heart is breaking my heart for his children.  He is breaking my heart for this city, this state, this country.

In a week where so many people are feeling heart broken and lost, I am praying for you.  I am praying that you begin to find direction not in man but in the hope of our one true Savior, Jesus.  Come to his altar that is filled with hope and love and direction and purpose.  Come to a place where your eyes are opened to the needs of the people around you.  So many people have said that they are willing to be the changes that need to be made in the coming days, months and years and it is inspiring but can I challenge you to do something?  Let your heart continue to break.  Walk in that despair, the disillusionment, the devastating sorrow and your disappointment but don't push it away.  Use it.  Use it to empathize and brainstorm.  Let your eyes be opened to the needs around you.  Let your heart break for those who need it.

As we approach the holiday season, hold onto that heart break and let it strengthen you from the inside out.  Let it challenge you to stretch yourself and your openness.  In the rawness of recent heart break it is easy to say things and make commitments to be better but sometimes in our vulnerability we pull it back together and shy away from doing the hard and heavy stuff because we don't want to continue to hurt or feel discomfort.  Don't shy away from it.  Again I say, walk through it and work through it.

In the very best way, my heart is breaking for you, friend and stranger.  I pray that you get a sense of what it means to hurt and use it to heal.  Do good.  Love your fellow man but don't try to do it on your own.  Seek help, seek Him.  

"Difficulties and mistakes will either devastate our faith or they will stimulate growth and maturity.  The positive differences come when we humbly seek God's help, whatever the situation.  Trials that tempt us to turn away from God should, instead, spur us to turn toward God."  Chronological Life Application Study Bible, page 788.