HOPE IN HIS HAND

"God will mend a broken heart if you give Him all the pieces."

-Aesop

Every beat of your heart is one, lonely cadence of force that shares a part in your life.  You will experience about three billion heartbeats in your life, and if something goes wrong with your heart's rhythm, you will likely notice.  You may then say that your heart flutters, or skips, or races, or hurts.  And though you may not know what is wrong, you know something isn't right.

Your spiritual heart is much the same.  When something is wrong, you know.  You may feel afraid, angry, betrayed, bruised, confused, desperate, depressed, dissatisfied, empty, helpless, homesick, hurt, lonely, useless, or worried. . . . Emotional "rhythm" seems not quite together.  You may not realize the depths of your feelings, but you know something isn't right.

Endless possibilities may have provoked your "heart pain":  a best friend betrayed your confidence; you had some bad news about someone you love; you worked and gave up time for yourself and your family for a career that now makes you bored and empty; you were applauded for a unique accomplishment but now feel only useless and unworthy; guilt seems to spoil every chance of happiness; envy for the lives of others eats away what contentment you have; you are tired and just want to be appreciated for what you do; you wonder why certain people who matter to you ignore you or treat you with contempt; you wonder why life is not fair.

Your "heart pain" may even be from casual indifference and neglect.  "I'll get around to God when life slows down."  "It's soccer season."  "I'm working overtime; I just can't think of the Lord right now."  "I'm too stressed to read my Bible everyday."

Or, your heart may have "damage" from many mistakes, regrets, or traumas.  It's been so much easier to shut down the pain than deal with it.  Now, maybe you are numb . . . emotionless . . . passionless.  You wonder what it would be like to feel again. 

In any case, you want freedom from heart misery.  You want a heart that beats with perfect, rhythmic, contented forces of purpose.  You want the "something just isn't right" ache to go away.   

My friend, you are not alone in your pain.  Everyone has personal history of an imperfect heart.  And everyone has only One door to deliverance.   

Salvation of our souls is found in Jesus.  He is the only way to our Father.  Likewise, salvation from a wounded heart is also only found in yielding to God. 

I can testify of God as the only way to wholeness because He is my healer and deliverer.  He is my Creator, Elohim, Who loves me as I am, so much that He will not leave me as He sees me.  He understands all of me, and He formed all of me, including my heart, the abyss of my hopes, hurts, and thoughts.  God  knows me. He gets the mysteries of my soul that blind me.  He comprehends me completely.  My complex personality and all its baggage and wired connections make sense to Him. 

And, my pain does not shock Jesus.  He is not one bit intimidated to look at my gross, oozing wounds and place His holy hands in my bloody sores.  He sees them all for what they are and empathizes with my weaknesses.  And yours.   

He sees your hurt through His eyes of personal experience, His own sacrifice and suffering that surpass all other griefs.  Jesus knows pain so fully.  While on this earth, He was intimate with sorrow, torture, and loneliness.  And Jesus' remembrance of His suffering allows Him to embrace your feelings as no one else can.  You cannot possibly hurt apart from His empathy. 

In tandem with His intimate sense of your hurting heart, Jesus has all the love of Father God.  So, when Christ senses your hurt and sees your suffering, He knows you from both the perspective of unfathomable love and unprecedented pain. 

Jesus is affected.  Compassioned.  Moved.  He hears your heart beat.  He hears your heart speak.  He lives to take it in His hands and hold it and heal its brokenness.
 
Yes, Jesus lives to heal your heart.  His healing for you is personally and beautifully designed.  It is whole, godly wisdom.  It is a balm made just for you.  It is His best.  It is the incomparable best.

Christ ALWAYS knows best.  And, He knows the why of every what in your life - all those deep answers and mysteries of dark glass that you really want to know now.  And, rather than giving you answers, He often chooses to give you healing and rest.  His rest is your gift to receive.  His rest is the joy of laying down the weight that slows you down to molasses' pace or knocks you to a cold, hard ground or kicks you into a pale pit.  His rest is the peace of feeling chains break and later looking behind to see them left at the altar you wisely prepared for you and your God.  His rest is a fresh, smooth road for running grace.   

Running grace!  Freedom to keep your eyes on Christ and give Him all you have!  And the liberty of running grace comes with a bonus!  Don't you love a bonus?  I do.  I am always excited to open an extra gift box and see what's in it. 

Jesus' bonus gifts are the best of all worlds!  And His running grace comes with a powerful side item:  hope. Why is hope such a big deal?  Hope gives life.  It lets us breathe.  Hope for that special something we can't see with our natural eyes causes us to hang in there when we want to quit.  We believe, we know, God is faithful and that His word is true.  We therefore believe and know He is in control and that things will get better. 

So, we do not give up.  We do not give in.  We keep running.  And waiting.

And while waiting, we allow Jesus to do surgery on our hearts.  We yield, and let Him work.  We know that any pain from his doctor hands will be worth it, for Christ only has our good in His perfect heart, and with His perfect touch from a perfect heart, our wholeness begins.  

When, at last, Christ completes a layer of wholeness in our hearts, we soar.  Our yielding, trusting, believing, and enduring give God glory.  Healed, we rise above grief, fear, anxiety, and regret.  The carnal world with its demanding ways and seducing voices no longer anchor us down to a permenant sinking state because Jesus' scarred hands have handled our hurt.

As we soar, we find raw truth in our stillness.  It is a truth only found in surviving the providence of pain.  It is a truth only found in running grace:  Feelings and circumstances do not determine your destiny.  God's divine hand does.

Clinging to God's Healing Truth,