To Have a Broken Heart

     We're a world full of broken hearts. Tragic losses, disappointing relationships, unrealized dreams - poets and songwriters thrive upon words which express our human pain. Bookstores abound with how-tos for overcoming grief, realizing or recreating life goals, or moving on from the scarring end of a relationship. We gather strength from the sympathy of others, confidence in the steps of those who have gone before us. Because if we mortals share one thing, it is the disappointment of our expectations. We hope for more than we can achieve; we plan our lives, oblivious to our lack of control; we expect our loves to be returned in kind.

     I've been struck by how often I hear someone referring to being "brokenhearted". Exaggerations and forms of expression aside, heart-wrenching pain surrounds us, always. Children in sin, loved ones leaving this world, friendships being abandoned - these sorrows are not strangers to us, or those we walk beside each day.

     But are these heartbreaks the cracking of our being, or an exposure of the holes? What if our dreams were to fill in gaps that are intrinsically missing from our existence? What if our love has become a desperate search to find the perfect pieces for our gaping hearts? What if it is sin, not circumstances, which crushes us so?

 

   What if I am, in my very essence, broken?

     The pain of which we speak when we bemoan a broken heart is terribly real, but the repetition of this word - "heartbroken" - has challenged my definition. To be brokenhearted, I've realized, doesn't mean that I was whole and something - or someone - shattered me, because I'm already shattered. Incomplete. Sick. In need of repair. Rather, seasons of "brokenness" or heartache are poignant moments in which the scales fall from my eyes, and I realize who I am.

     This isn't something "God did to me", but an unveiling of myself: a broken, sin-smeared individual in desperate need to be fixed and filled-in by her Savior. Sometimes I try to help, thinking I understand how to make myself whole, thinking being sick means I know the cure, but this only results in flimsy life pillars which must in turn be demolished to allow for proper supports. These demolitions too, as I say, "break my heart," and since I've thus supported my hopes and affections, I suppose they do. But only in proportion to the expectations I've placed upon the work of my own hands.

     Don't misunderstand me, though. Our pain, what we call "brokenhearted-ness" is not because our loves, hopes or dreams were wrong - although we should be daily evaluating them. Nor are they because God ruined us, or delights in our pain - though He does make everything work for good. We are broken because we are full of failings in a sin-saturated world, and we feel the vacuum of this incompleteness most acutely in moments of barefaced loss. Sometimes our loss is caused by sin in the world - death, betrayal, need - and sometimes by sin in ourselves - idols, pride, misplaced affections, disobedience. But being forced to acknowledge these shattered pieces does not break my heart. It reminds me of my need to be made whole.

     So to those acutely aware of their broken hearts today: I am crying for you. My heart hurts for you. Let me pray for and with you. Yet, in this season, in this your time of seeing chips and shards and cracks, savor who God reveals Himself to be. As you throw yourself before His merciful throne, staggering under your burden, realize that this is an attitude we should cultivate: the lamenting of sin, of pain, of imperfection. It is only through this discipline that He can work to heal far more than our temporary woes; He will cure our thorough incompleteness. After all, He has come to "bind up the brokenhearted."

     And that means all of us.


Photo 1: Skley, Dennis. Broken Heart 294/366. 20 October 2012. Flickr Creative Commons.
Photo 2: Skley, Dennis. Pain of a broken heart. 21 August 2011. Flickr Creative Commons.
Photo 3: Vortexas32. IMG_2625. 29 March 2012. Flickr Creative Commons.