TOTHEUNTAMEDHEART.

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
& saves those who are crushed in spirit.
PSALM 34:18

I think the world is broken.

& I know what the Christians are thinking, because this is a fallen world.
The world IS broken, sugar.

But this isn’t about Christianese. This is about people red & yellow & black & white. This is about the mother of the screaming one standing behind you in the checkout line, the young girl sitting alone at the gynecologists, the college girl balancing the church family & late Friday nights.

This is about how her father died. & everyone wants to warm her up with the no more suffering one-liners. They want to throw a band aid on her wound with the God talk. But under that band aid, her dad died, & that’s not something a sweet thought can soften.

This is her cousin dying before his hair could turn grey.
This is the mom trying to explain to her four year old how his daycare teacher won’t be around any longer.
This is the end to the notes of sympathy for a mother who lost her son months ago, whose wounds are still very open & real.

This is my Papa’s dog getting cancer a year after he had passed, stripping my Gram of the last piece of her husband that remained, bringing on a silence she doesn’t need to carry.

This is about people hurting people. Over and over and over again. & how we see a sadness in their eyes that is deep enough to shoot pain through your whole body upon contact. The kind that sends flashbacks & carries more hurt every time.

This is about keeping tally of everything wonderful that has squeezed itself into your day in hopes that he’ll text you & ask you how your day was & you can pour out the pieces you were dying to share with him & he could love you the way you thought he did.

So I think the world is broken.
& I don’t think we need all the talk & the reminders of God is good & God will provide & God’s plan hasn’t lost its girth & sturdiness. I think what we need is to know our pain is seen & we are seen. I think we need to know that the people God created who are carrying tiny, glittering pieces of a good, loving, providing, faithful God want to be imitators of the goodness, love, & faithfulness they themselves have received. I think we just want the glittering things to shine.

Yesterday was the worst day I’ve had in a while, with hurt from every angle. & while I laid in bed, crying very pregnant, hormonal tears, people were flooding my heart. Because right now, it seems a very real possibility that the whole world is broken, covered in their own very bad days. So many beautiful, radiant ones carrying the most heavy losses. So many strong ones, carrying the feeling of loneliness & defeat. & all I heard in return from the Lord was the words from Psalm 34:18.

God is near to the brokenhearted.
God is near to the brokenhearted.
You are near to the brokenhearted.
Reach out & touch them.