I get it. I understand how much it can hurt to rely on others- to depend- to trust- to speak your heart to them. And then just get blank stares and awkward silenced feedback in return. That’s the worst…I mean can I at least get a hesitated pat on the back or a mere hug??? Helloooo…I am HURTING here. I am about to burst- blow up- fall to pieces…and all you can do is stare at me for feeling this way, for speaking my truth? Actually, I don’t get it. I don’t get how glamorous you can make yourself up to be when I can barely remember that I do have mascara on before rubbing my eyes. Such a glamour don’t. I just don’t get how you can’t hurt in this world. I am hurting…and you look like you have it all together. I wouldn’t call how I feel jealous…but simply…confused how I have to feel this awful hurt when you don’t. Or…are you…hurting too?
Bro-ken. That’s one thing I feel that I have always understood- specifically the brokenhearted. I connect to the pain in people’s eyes and feel their hurt with them. Extending a hand to those whose hearts aren’t strong enough to keep going feels like my duty, a part of me. I want to be there for that person who is barely hanging on, who is just relying on things of the world to numb the pain, to distract them for a moment from the everyday heartbreak. I understand that it hurts and that’s uncomfortable in itself. It can make us feel sad, unworthy, angry, confused, and alone. But you aren’t. Brokenness has allowed me to come in and be there for that person- to be a friend. Not to “save the day” with my cape flying in the wind on my back, but to be a real-life person that actually GETS IT. Empathy, people. Can you show a little?
Their eyes are always the first thing I find, soft, but their actions always so hard and loud for all the world to hear. I came right away when my girlfriend got her heart broken for the first time and just shook on her bed as tears ran down her face, and I held onto her tight…when my friend’s parents were going through an ugly divorce and smoking weed made everything “fine” and easily forgettable for him, until the smoke cleared and the sun poured in to shed light on another hard day.
Life is brutally hard. So hard that I would much rather put on a happy face any day than for people to see that I am, in fact, broken (and breaking) inside too. This is something I struggle with daily. For me to be broken is to be vulnerable, to let the cruel, mean world see that I cannot hold on, that I need to fall apart to fit back together again.
I somehow lost what I loved in a matter of a year, broken in all of 12 months. It is still strange to try to place it all together- what led up to everything, to try to pin-point the warning signs or the cause. Pshhh…the effect is the easy part. I could no longer feel my friends around me. I no longer felt their presence, their care, or their hearts in my life. So I continued to push anything and everything away from me so that I wouldn’t HAVE to feel any of that awful pain, sadness, or insecurity and realize that they really were gone and that I really was alone. I relied on them to hold me when I broke, just as I held onto them before. When I finally did break… I shattered on the ground into a million pieces. And I learned the HARD way. Slowly of course- not all at once- slowly, painfully, and brutally.
“Cursed is the strong one
who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
in a land where nothing grows.7-8 “But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season.9-10 “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be.”11 Like a cowbird that cheats by laying its eggs
in another bird’s nest
Is the person who gets rich by cheating.
When the eggs hatch, the deceit is exposed.
What a fool he’ll look like then!12-13 From early on your Sanctuary was set high,
a throne of glory, exalted!
O God, you’re the hope of Israel.
All who leave you end up as fools,
Deserters with nothing to show for their lives,
who walk off from God, fountain of living waters—
and wind up dead!
14-18 God, pick up the pieces.
Put me back together again.
You are my praise!
Though I have lost, I have gained SO MUCH MORE through the process. I have been forced to seek God for advice and guidance, to seek God when I need an embrace, to seek God when I am sad & lonely. And it has been the worst, and the most beautiful part of who I am becoming. I am at my lowest low and I want to give up as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning, but I cannot. Because You didn’t give up on me and You haven’t still. Though I am a mess, I am a glorious mess of Jesus- and that’s a better, cleaner mess to clean up than that of the world, where you can’t always trust to catch you when you fall.
So now when I want to give my heart away, when I want to help, when I think about speaking with my heart, I take a moment to guard it. Everything good and holy flows from it, right? So it must be something pretty special that God gave me, and I want to use it well. Now that doesn’t mean that it won’t remain in tact all day, everyday. In fact, I feel so much more than I used to, and with my sensitive heart I am changing the way I change the world–I give it to God before I even love on he or she….or it or that. My imperfect heart is stitched up all over the place and tears every now and then.
But I am courageous each day that I decide to use it the way that God wants me to. Not for the world’s glory, but for HIS.
Rooted in Love 