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The Brokenhearted

                         He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.  (Psalm 147:3)

Broken hearts can heal. I know that it’s unempathetic of me to even suggest that healing is possible, but according to Scripture, God heals the brokenhearted. Scripture does not tell us what method He’ll use or how long it will take. I suspect that we can not even remember the heartbreak while God is still working on it. Other times, we may be going about our day and suddenly realize that we’re not in pain anymore. We might even feel guilty for not being in pain.

Speaking of guilt, I must mention that feeling guilty for not feeling heartbroken is no more noble than feeling the pain of heartbreak. Just as there isn’t nobility in feeling or not feeling the pain of a sprained ankle or a broken arm, there is no nobility in feeling heart pain. It does not prove your love for someone who is gone or show you to be superior for continuing to ache over someone’s callousness. There is no great virtue in not allowing God to heal our heartbreaks, but neither is there virtue in pretending the pain isn’t there. Who we are may grow out of the pain we’ve endured, but our identity is not in the pain. It is not us, and we are not it. Our universe naturally shrinks to the size and shape of the pain and its cause. But it is not healthy to build our home upon it.

This doesn’t mean we should treat people who are in pain – or people who aren’t in pain – badly. We should pray for their healing and treat them with love, kindness, and gentleness. But the point is that God does heal heartbreak. Since it is God’s goal, it should also be ours, and we should thank Him for it, even in advance.

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