heartbreak.

Heart: a hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood through the circulatory system by rhythmic contraction and dilation. To break: separate or cause to separate into pieces as a result of a blow, shock, or strain. Two very physical words. Two very physical things. Yet, we associate the word heartbreak to the emotional feeling. Have you ever felt a heartbreak? It is not purely emotional. It is not purely physical. It is something that you feel in every inch of you. You feel it in your chest, the sinking feeling of your heart squeezing tight. You feel it in your finger tips, the tingling of your fingers as the blood circulates too fast. You feel it in the tears. You feel it in the heaviness that settles on your shoulders as you realize that the hurt you feel is real and happening to you. Recently, a friend of mine experienced a heart break. Everything in her life was whole and happy with her boyfriend, then in the next instant, it wasn’t. When I think about that, my mind immediately begs the question: why does God do this to us? To her? Why does God put us through so much pain? A physical, emotional, all over pain. God doesn’t want us to hurt, he doesn’t want to see our hearts break. It hurts him too. Sometimes, though, hurt is what it takes. Every single hurt carries a reminder of why we so desperately need God. When we are stripped of everything else, the boyfriend, the money, the friends, the things that we give so much value, what are we left with? More often than not, we find that we are utterly empty without the fillers. That is what happens when we place other things on the pedestal only God deserves. We are left empty. God knows, though, that we are humans. It is incredibly hard for our small minds to wrap around the idea of a God whose loving arms are always around us, even when our idol’s arms aren’t. As humans, relationships with others or even sometimes relationships with things are the closest way that we can understand what a relationship with God looks like, and God knows this. He understands this. A love that is so pure and sacrificial with no expectations, no toxicity, a love that frees us in every way is a foreign concept to us because it doesn’t exist outside of God. We scratch the surface with relationships, and we make that person or thing God, consciously or not. That is why God has to remind us that only he can be God in our lives. But amidst the confusion and hurt of a heartbreak we forget, when he strips us bare, “He’s ready to come to their rescue in bad times; in bare times he keeps body and soul together” (Psalm 33:22). In hurt and heartbreak, we can finally feel his arms squeezing us tight, holding us together, picking us up, and helping us stand straight to walk forward aware of him again. Think about it this way: when we love someone, we will do whatever it takes to help them make the right decisions or prevent them from pain, even if it means that we have to hurt them a little. The short-term hurt will prevent the longterm pain. We do this because we love them. If we would do this with what little love our human hearts can hold, how much farther will the Lord go? He will be beaten near death. He will walk the path to Golgotha. He will have his hands and feet driven through with nails to a splintery cross. He will go to hell and back just to wrap his arms around us again, to prevent the heartbreak of going through heartbreak without him.