Living Life With A Broken Heart

Broken hearts suck 🙂

We are pretty naive to think that we won’t get a broken heart at some point in our lives. I used to think that I never would, so when the time finally came, I didn’t know what to do. All of the things I preached to my friends when they had one all of a sudden didn’t apply to me. So, I scrambled to do what I felt like would fix it: advice from friends (all so different and contradictory; and then not listening to any of it), forcing depression onto myself because I felt like I wasn’t allowed to be happy for a certain amount of time, therapy, looking at life through the eyes of “what could have been”…. not a *serious* prayer/ Bible reading in sight. This is a place I never thought I would be in. Looking at depression & anxiety as “a mindset” shifted to staring at it in the face, along with pieces of a shattered heart on the ground.

I have learned recently that God talks to me a lot in visions and metaphors. During this season of heartbreak, I would envision myself sitting on the ground, scrambling to pick up all of these pieces of my heart and put them back together, just for them to fall apart every time. I never knew why I kept seeing this scene play out over and over in my head, until a couple days ago (a year and a half later). A couple days ago I had a new vision that showed me what I could have done to make that moving on and healing process move along much quicker and less painful. I strongly believe that God has called me to give these revelations as a tool of encouragement for others, so if this is you, sitting in a season (knowingly or unknowingly) of heartbreak, I encourage you to keep reading. Or if you’re like me, and you’re out of that season, we remember that heartbreak is inevitable and usually happens more than once in a lifetime, so maybe this can be a good reminder for later down the road.

The operating room:

Let’s use our imagination, follow me here:

I find a common trend in mostly everyone’s journey to fixing a broken heart: (again, crappy and unrealistic) advice from friends/family, changing your hair to create a new identity, drinking and partying, therapy, and all the other things that you have seen others do, or even done yourself. Now, some of these things are not completely bad, don’t hear what I am not saying. I have my hair appointments scheduled every 8 weeks and miss them FOR NOTHING, I love getting different opinions from friends/family because,*spoiler*, you’re not always in the right, and I literally want to be a therapist! The problem is when our intentions of doing these things are to “fix” us, and we run to them first, second, third, fourth….until eventually there’s nothing else to turn to.

Travel with me to an operating room.

You are laying on the surgical table having open heart surgery. The doctor is 1.) overwhelmed with how many pieces there are and is already stressed because he keeps putting the wrong pieces in the wrong place, because 2.) there is no guide on how to do this; everyone’s heart breaks differently. Him not knowing what he’s doing causes you so much more pain because he keeps messing up. Next, the assisting doctor (we’ll call her Partying) tries to jump in with lots of confidence and put the pieces back together… unsuccessful. Shocker. Next I see some friends and family coming in and saying “I know her better than anyone, I got this”. And through lots of trial and error, they indeed did not get it. Imagine each one of these “methods” I mentioned before chiming in. Eventually, after way too much time, effort, and extra unnecessary pain and money, I am presented and sent off with a heart that is poorly bandaged together with pieces still missing, and, “That’s the best we could do” being told to me as I walk out the door. How depressing, but the reality of most people we are around every single day. Who tell you “Yeah! I’m doing great!”

Let’s try it again. Travel with me to an operating room.

You are laying on the surgical table having open heart surgery. The doctor looks different this time. More calm. Smiling even, like he has been waiting on this moment to show off the skill he knows how to do so well. Jesus is looking down at your heart and says, “I literally made this. I know what to do”. He intricately puts each piece back, slow and steady, which is still painful, but before you know it you are walking out with your heart not even how it was before. It’s better; like new. This time the words being told to me as I am walking out is, “When they ask, just tell them who did it”.

What this showed me

We cannot rely on others, new experiences, or things to fully fix us. We cannot walk through life putting Jesus as an option that we sometimes use when every other option seems to fail. We pray the self centered prayers and do the skimmed Bible reading because we think that’s what we are expected to do when you’re a Christian going through a hard time. All of a sudden, no matter how many years you’ve been a believer, we tend to have a mindset that the works of the cross & blood that was shed works for everyone, but us. You even start to feel shame because at this point you aren’t even being a “good Christian”. Never ending cycles of negativity and self destructing thoughts swirling within you.

For me, it took having somebody verbally tell me, “I don’t know what is going on, but God just told me to come tell you….”

and everything they said was SPOT ON to how I was feeling. Only God would know to tell someone exactly what I needed to hear because I didn’t even verbalize to myself what I was feeling until that morning. However, that meant no more ignoring the signs He was placing in front of me. No more not wanting to come to Him with the shame and embarrassment that I started to carry. I was accountable and had to remind myself that either the cross works, or it doesn’t. No in between… the cross, plus or minus nothing. He saw me right where I was, and had the answers. Open heart surgery began in that moment. A moment that could have happened so much sooner if I didn’t try to fight it months before and try to do things my way instead of His. The only thing that I got out of doing other methods was being able to have a testimony to confirm that they don’t work.

My mom told me when I was five I was told to draw myself and what I want people to see when they look at me, so I drew myself with a big heart on my chest. Let me tell you, it’s not a good look when people are looking at a broken one, and you are also unknowingly leading with a broken one. I’m not saying this to say that if you have a broken heart right now, you’re not going to be effective in other people’s lives, but for me I realized that definitely was the case. I found myself acting, talking, and treating others in ways I never did before, representing Christianity so incorrectly, which also broke my heart more. I was chasing dopamine hits led by selfishness (because when you have a broken heart the world tells you to “focus on yourself” but they don’t specify how). BUT that’s the thing with the Devil. He makes you think you aren’t doing anything wrong. He tries to use your own ideologies against you by saying “You’re still serving at church. You still believe in Jesus. You’re pretty much being Biblical in so many other areas of your life. There is nothing you could do to make Him not love you, so it doesn’t really matter. Do what you want.” A dangerous spot to be in. I didn’t realize all of this was my thought process until very recently.

I saw this in a post on social media and thought it went well with this concept of trying everything else and using Jesus as a last resort:

“The world wants peace, but rejects the PRINCE of Peace. The world wants love, but rejects the AUTHOR of love, the world wants life, but rejects the One who gave His to save theirs. The world desperately wants Jesus, but they’re too busy rejecting Him to realize He is the answer.”

If we focused our intentions on seeking Jesus’ face, connect our hands to His heart, and lay all our insecurities at His feet, it is crazy what can be accomplished within yourself, your relationships, your outlook on life, and your Christian walk. For the last couple months I have had the topic of “love” stick out everywhere around me, and of course the heart is the universal symbol for love. I’ve been learning and studying the depth of God’s love for us, and how we give that love to others, and I have discovered that if we are being led with a broken heart we aren’t getting the full benefits of either of those things. We will mainly lead with bitterness, offense, discouragement, and hate without even trying and will even deny that we are. And we can do this in a small amount (to a point where we don’t think we are doing it) or it is straight up intentional.

I want this, how do I get here?

I’m not going to lie and tell you that it’s easy to just switch your mindset over to this, because it’s not. It takes work. You actually have to try. Start with recognizing why you have this broken heart. It could be from a person, multiple people, the church (ouch), yourself, or even God Himself, but I believe the first thing that needs to be done is true forgiveness. Forgiving and letting go of offense towards any of these things is key to starting fresh. True forgiveness and still using the past against them is not true forgiveness. Reaching out for forgiveness and it’s not accepted, shifts into you walking in the result of that severed olive branch and you’re still hurt, which molds into bitterness. Being free of bitterness is not looking at them with eyes of punishment, even in the slightest. If you think your bitterness and anger towards somebody is fully justifiable, I would reconsider. Remember who you are talking to when you pray about these issues. Jesus not only could have done everything right, but He did do everything right, and still got mocked, ridiculed, and killed for being the most loving person on the planet. If you think you are entitled to anything less than that, I would encourage you to think again.

You fully forgive, or you don’t. You walk and respond like Jesus, or you don’t. I understand when flesh comes into the mix because we all fall short, but do not intentionally do things that you KNOW He wouldn’t personally do Himself. Do not play a role in hypocritical Christianity. Viewing people how Jesus does (yes, even yourself) also helps and honestly makes things easier. You have to remember that Jesus looks at you the same way He looks at them, no matter how you feel.

Basically, embrace the slow and steadiness of His hand guiding your pieces back together. It’s hard and things like sadness and confusion are totally normal. I believe after that forgiveness step is done everyone’s journey is different, and if you seek God’s guidance He will show you your next steps. My previous blog called “10 Things I Learned in 2022” was what I got out of my heart healing process, but I know it’s not the same for everyone. I hope you step fully and confidently into this process. Reach out if you want to talk!