All of us have had our hearts broken at one time or another. Maybe it was rejection, fear, betrayal, disappointment or shattered dreams. Maybe you thought the person you loved would be with you forever. Instead, one morning they told you that they didn’t love you anymore.
Maybe the child you raised with love and great sacrifice got involved with the wrong crowd, and you watched a life of promise reduced to despair. Or, maybe, after 20 years at your job, you were told that your services were no longer needed.
Some people have been living with wounded hearts since childhood. Never good enough for their parents no matter what they did or, even worse, abused physically or emotionally. Even abandoned.
This kind of suffering and pain prompts us to ask, where is God when my heart aches? Why does God allow these things to happen? There are no easy answers—and there may never be. We live in a broken world with broken people. But we are not hopeless. The Lord heals the broken heart and bandages the wounds. It is one of the great miracles of life.
I recall a woman, who I will call Anna, who married her first husband very young. It wasn’t long before the relationship turned into a nightmare. She was physically abused, sometimes in front of her children. The scars on her body told the story. After many years in this abusive relationship, Anna got a divorce, but she continued to carry the trauma.
Eventually she met and married a wonderfully loving and kind man. Anna wasn’t used to this generous love and compassion; he soothed her pain. A few years into the marriage, he unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack. Anna was devastated. Every year on their wedding anniversary, she would go into her bedroom alone and watch the video of that wonderful event. She grieved and missed him deeply, but he had helped change the way she saw and loved herself.
Years passed before she once again found a man who treated her with respect, unconditional love and kindness. They married, but Anna could not let go of the loss of her second husband. Two years later they divorced, but remained friends—and even in love.
Anna’s pain and past continued to be an obstacle in her life, even while still caring for her ex-husband. One day, after a close encounter with death, she realized she wanted to remarry him. I officiated at the small wedding that offered the couple another chance to share a life together. Like Anna, we need to remember that our broken hearts always have the chance to be healed by love, God’s love.
