The human heart does not really break.
It shatters.
As if a tremendous weight were suddenly dropped on it from a great height; the heart implodes, and the pieces are scattered everywhere. We spend years stumbling through a darkened landscape, disoriented, numb, trying to gather up the pieces – trying to reassemble our shattered hearts. But we lack the desire, the energy, even the ability to accomplish such a task. So, we learn to navigate our days half-hearted. When people say such a wound can and should be “healed” they are peddling greeting cards, not truth.
Our hearts were not created for crippling sorrow. That is why we don’t know what to do with it. That is why our language of grief feels so inadequate. There is no translation for what we are experiencing, even the angels have no words to describe it, how could they? This bewilderment cannot be helped. It is as if our hearts were created for another world, not this one.
“The Lord is near to the broken-hearted” the psalmist informs us. What does that mean? Can we feel that nearness? Some can, most of us cannot. What good is a nearness you cannot sense? What good was it to a man like Job, sitting in a garbage dump, screaming at the darkness, and demanding to see God? I don’t know, but I think it is only that Presence that keeps us from going completely mad at such times.
Even a strong human heart cannot be trusted, how much less a shattered one? A shattered heart will lie to us. It will tell us we deserve this. it will drag all our sins into the light and tell us we are being judged. But we are not; judgement day is coming, but this is not it. This is just life and death in a shattered world, which is where shattered hearts belong. You may be crushed, but you are not being punished; that is not how God operates.
I am sorry for what some of you are carrying right now, the blinding, sickening grief. I wish I could take it from you. I wish I could swallow it, so you never see it. I wish I could go back before your shattering and stop it from ever happening. I can do none of these things. I am as impotent in these matters as all the others who surround you.
You will be picking up the pieces of your shattered heart for a long time. You will find them everywhere; in memories, in houses, on vacations, walking down the street or on the beach. Years from now you will be driving somewhere, and you will run into a piece of it, and you will cry an ugly snotty cry for twenty miles. You will never get all the pieces together again, sorry. It’s ok, you are part of a kingdom of cripples, and we have no expectations of you.
We need to remember that the god who is said to be near; he is not just a god. He is the God who watched his son die. A God whose heart has been shattered. A God who is making all things new.
You need to know that you are not alone. There are many shattered hearts out here. We will walk with you and say nothing. We will gather broken pieces together. Until, one day, as we reach for another piece, the sun will come up in a way it never has before, as the veil is removed, and we can finally see all things as they truly are. Our questions will be answered. Our losses will be found. Our hearts will be new. It would never fit on a greeting card. But it is all true.
“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” – CS Lewis
“There shall be no more death.” – God