Helping People With Broken Hearts

The morning after our son died I awoke from my sleep praying in an unknown language. Suddenly English words flowed through my mind and I knew it was God speaking to me:

“You can say David died, but I want you to know that my own never die. I came and took him; I always come and take my own. Don’t question what went wrong. Don’t look to the right or to the left, but keep your eyes on Me, and I will heal your heart and lead you through this time of grief.”

I want to emphasize God’s promise that He would heal my heart. God cannot lie! In fact, He sent Jesus Christ to heal the brokenhearted.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1).

Here are some discoveries I made that can help you find healing for your heart too.

We must say goodbye

A week after our son died, I dreamed I was holding him again and preparing him to leave us. God had given me the opportunity to say goodbye to him—something I hadn’t recognized I needed. I awoke with such comfort in my heart!

We must say goodbye when we lose someone or must let go of something precious. This puts our heart in a position for God’s healing power to work. Our life will never be the same as it was before, but we can put our trust in God and His power and wait for the new to come.

Keep our eyes on Jesus

When something bad happens, we often wonder why. How did I fail? I didn’t have enough faith. Why didn’t the doctor do …?

But that night after David died, we stood there and prayed, “Lord, we will not question what went wrong, why he wasn’t healed, but we will put our trust in you.”

In the year following, I held these words from the Psalmist close to my heart:

I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage (Psalms 27:13-14).

At the same time, I learned to guard my mind so negative thoughts from others couldn’t rob me of my faith.

Go to Jesus with your pain

It is easy to swallow our pain, push it down, never allow our self to feel it. But if we want Jesus to heal our heart, we must do what he said:

Come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

It is easy to talk about Jesus, read the Bible, say our prayers, but never go to Jesus. We must go directly to Him with our pain. We need to pour out our heart before Him, as the Psalmist did, and show him how it feels. Otherwise our heart will get hard.

Put your faith in God and his power

On Easter Sunday that year as I was singing, “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow,” suddenly it was like a window opened up, and I saw our son standing with his hands lifted up, worshiping the Lord.

Did you know that more people go to church on Easter Sunday than any other time of the year? They go because they need to touch the message of Easter: God brings life out of death, light out of darkness and meaning and purpose out of agony, confusion, and suffering.

This is one of the key things I learned: to place my faith in God and His power. The same power that brought Jesus out of the grave is inside me. And it is inside of you, if you have received Jesus into your heart. You cannot be destroyed, because the power of God is right within you.

That your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:5)

Hold fast to God’s promise

Ten years earlier, when we learned David had leukemia, our pastor read Psalms 34 to us. Throughout the long years I clung to those Scriptures like a drowning woman. Now I give them to you:

 The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous,  but the Lord delivers him out of them all (Ps 34:17-19).

Our hearts can be broken in many different ways, but God’s promise is still active and alive for those who call upon Him with their whole heart and put their trust in Him.