Listen:
“He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3)
Reflect:
What do you do with a broken heart? What do you do when, at 31 years old, the man who you had hoped to marry you, tells you that you are not good enough for him? What do you do when the doctor calls you on a Monday morning at 9 am, just when you’re about to start your normal work day, to tell you that you might have cancer and you need to retake some of the tests? What do you do with broken relationships? What do you do with words thrown at you with malicious intent? What do you do when your luggage is packed and you are all ready to travel to Uganda, that country and people that you love, and you get a positive covid test result, and you have to quarantine at home, rather than being a witness and partaker of all that God is about to do? What do you do each month when you are reminded that your body did not give life to a new life, what do you do when your womb feels like a tomb?
What do you do with a broken heart? Is there hope for healing, when it feels that even when you put the pieces together, there still are too many cracks that need filling? Or, even more, when you feel that you have been turned into dust and all hope seems lost? What do you do when God does not part the sea before you? When the mountains are not moved?
These are big, hard, real questions that don’t allow quick and superficial answers. So let’s stop for a minute, before going on…
Questions to Ponder:
- Where is your heart broken, chipped, or turned to dust?
- Are you minimizing your pain, just rushing to “the right Christian answers”?
- Does your pain lead you to feeling like a victim, that all hope is lost? Do you feel alone in your pain?
- Or is it all of the above?
Life is hard, we all feel it in us or around us. There is crushing and burning at almost every corner of life and brokenness is a given. Talking about this is hard. Not minimizing this is hard. BUT, there is another reality that is as real as all of the painful reality of life all together, and that is that, in Jesus, we have the hope of resurrection! You might think that this is a simplistic answer (and you are right to have a sense that there is so much to talk about here!) but the realest reality is that, because Jesus Christ defeated death, we have hope for healing. This is a promise that we can stand on in the darkest nights of the soul. God does not promise to change our circumstances (how I wish he did!), but he promised healing. And even this healing, we might not fully experience it here, but One Day, on that glorious day when we will see Jesus face to face, when all things will be made new, all healing will be fully possible, fully present, fully real.
Until then, until we see Jesus face to face, rest in his embrace as he wipes away all our tears. Until then…
- What do you want to tell him now, in the middle of your pain? He loves you so much and wants to hear your heart. Don’t hesitate to pour your heart before him.
- What do you want? On the journey of healing, Jesus asked the people he encountered what they wanted.
- Who can you be with on this journey of healing? Jesus invited his close friends to be with him in the garden, just before his crucifixion, not for advice or protection, but for companionship.
- What is the next step forward, on the journey of healing? You don’t have to take ten steps ahead, just one. And as you do that, remember that Jesus is holding your hand. He’s got you!
Do you believe that God can breathe the breath of life into dust?
Prayer of Response:
My Jehovah Rapha, I confess that my pain can often blind me to you. It can blind me to the reality that I am loved, that I am not alone, that you carry me through the darkest valley. Lift my eyes today to see you. Fix my eyes on you, the Healer, for I need you for my very breath of life. Give me eyes to see and faith to believe that each and every day – whether my heart or body are chipped or they feel whole – that you love me and that there is hope that one day I will be fully healed and made whole. And until that glorious day, hold my hand for each step of the way on this journey of healing with you. In the Name of the Wounded Healer I pray, Amen.
—Submitted by Diana Anton
Diana was born in the fascinating lands of Transylvania and now lives in Bucharest, Romania. She serves as the Executive Director of Lifesprings International and her passion is to see women worldwide connected, encouraged and prepared to impact their communities with the love of God. She loves to restore old wood, or junk wood, as she calls it, as it reminds her of the journey of transformation and growth that we are on – the journey of grace.
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