When I Feel Heartbroken I Turn To God

.

As we count down the days to celebrating and remembering the resurrection of Jesus this Easter, we’ve been looking at how to turn our hearts fully towards God. We are bringing Him the hard to understand and the hard to explain. We are coming to Him from wherever we are and with whatever we’re feeling. We are holding on to the promise that He doesn’t ask us to wait until we “have it all together” or “have it all figured out,” but that He has promised to meet us in the middle of whatever we’re going through. 

This week, we want to look at how to turn our hearts toward God when we’re heartbroken. Being heartbroken is wholly different from just being bummed out or disappointed. Heartbreak is not something you feel for a moment and then you get distracted and you feel better. Heartbreak is an animal all its own. It can include grief, anguish, disorientation, fear, uncertainty, and offense. The tentacles of heartbreak reach into multiple areas of our lives in such a way that with each day or week that passes, the effects of the hurt and the loss can seem to multiply to greater and greater degrees.

I looked up broken-hearted in the Bible dictionary and it used descriptors like rend violently, wreck, crush, maim and shatter. If you’ve ever been heartbroken, you’re probably nodding your head right now, and maybe even adding your own words like confused, lost, or decimated. As I mulled over the weight of carrying these feelings, I went back to the story of the Passion Week – the week that Jesus spent in Jerusalem before he went to the cross. As I read through the events of that week, I thought about the disciples and about the heartbreak that they too must have experienced during that time.

Their rabbi – the one they had given up everything to follow for the past three years and the one they had believed would establish God’s kingdom – was arrested, tried, convicted, and executed. The Bible says they scattered, and only two are even mentioned between the time of Jesus’ arrest and resurrection - Peter and John. And even then, bold Peter is seen denying he ever even knew Jesus in the first place.

What must it have been like for the disciples as they witnessed the unfolding of these events? I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that they were devastated, confused, disoriented, and fearful. Maybe they wondered what had really just happened and what it all meant. Maybe they questioned the entire last three years and everything Jesus had said.

Even after Jesus had been raised from the dead and they had seen Him for themselves, we still see the lingering impact of their heartbreak. We know that many returned to what they had been doing before they met Jesus. When Jesus called several of the disciples, they were fishing and he told them “Drop your nets and follow me.” And they had, seemingly without hesitation! But in the midst of their grief and confusion, we see that the disciples had picked them back up again, and Jesus again finds them fishing.

If you’ve ever been heartbroken, you know that the world slows down. You feel numb, you look for words but they fail, you cry until the tears stop coming, you can’t even think straight, you may not even be able to imagine what going forward even looks like, and you might not want to. I’ve experienced several seasons of heartbreak in my life. My father passed away from cancer in the summer between Kindergarten and first grade. I almost lost both of my parents at the same time to illnesses a few years ago, and while they ultimately survived, it was a grief filled month long journey as I was pretty much planning two funerals until the Lord performed a great miracle in both of their lives. I’ve also had one of my best friends literally walk out of my life after a decade of friendship, declaring we’d never really truly been friends.

Heartbreak is real. It’s hard, and it hurts… a lot. If you’re walking through a season of heartbreak right now, I’m so so sorry. I wish I could sit with you, hear your story, and hug you and cry with you. And here’s what I’d eventually tell you – God sees you and He is with you in the midst of it. Listen to these verses:

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3

Even as I read those, I realize that when your heart is broken they can feel like empty words. I know in my own seasons of heartbreak I knew these things, I could even quote them, but I didn’t feel them. I didn’t feel saved, or healed, or that my wounds were bound up. I felt like I was alone and emotionally bleeding out.

I get it. But what I have also found during these seasons was that while other people’s words and their presence brought a measure of comfort, the greatest comfort came as I clung to Jesus. In seasons of heartbreak, I found myself holding onto Jesus for dear life, and that’s what I want to encourage you to do too.

If you’ve ever read through Psalms, you might have noticed a lot of them are what are called “psalms of lament.” They are written by people crying out to God and turning to Him in their heartbreak. And one of the things I love the most about psalms of lament is that God actually allowed these to be part of his perfect, inspired Word to us. I believe, He wanted us to see that heartbreak is real, but so is His promise of hope in the midst of it. One psalmist even tried to remind himself of this truth:

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

Psalm 43:5

He was right. When we are heartbroken, we must turn our hearts to Him. God is the only source of real hope, and only He can provide real healing.

So… how do we do that? How do we “put our hope in God”? I came up with 4 things that my mentors helped me to do, and I made them into an acrostic so maybe you can remember them and do them, too.

When our hearts are breaking, we turn our hearts to God with H.O.P.E.

H - Come to God HONESTLY

I mentioned the psalms of lament, and those are an example of this kind of raw honesty. I think sometimes we try to get ourselves together before we talk to God, as though there is something holy about not losing it and saying what we’re really thinking or feeling. But the truth is, He already knows! It doesn’t surprise God one bit, and it’s incredibly therapeutic to come honestly. Psalm 88 provides a perfect example of coming to God honestly. In fact, one of the things I love about it is that there’s no resolution. It doesn’t start emotionally raw and end all happy, tied neatly with a bow. It’s just raw honesty.

I weep before you night and day. Please bend down and listen to my sobbing, for my life is riddled with troubles and death is just around the corner … Every day I beg for your help. Can’t you see my tears? My eyes are swollen with weeping. My arms are wide, longing for mercy, but you’re nowhere to be found.

Psalm 88: 2, 9

Have you ever felt like that?? This guy came honestly as he poured his heart out to the Lord… and we can, too.

O - Come to God OVER and OVER again

Like I said earlier, heartbreak is pervasive - it touches so many parts of our lives. It’s not a little twinge of sadness that goes away. It comes in waves,.and every time it does we need to run back to God. He will never turn you away. He will not wonder at the fact that you were just here. He is our strong tower, our refuge in the storm. We can run to him over and over again.

P - Come PRAYING the PROMISES and character of God

As you call on God, acknowledge who He is and remember what He has done in the past. Ask Him for what you need now based on what He’s promised. I love how Pastor Buddy Owens teaches this point. He uses a passage from 2 Chronicles 20, and as the storyu goes Jehoshaphat is facing an invading army and he cries out to the Lord. He starts by praying God’s character, then he prays and calls upon what God has done in the past, and then he turns to finally pray the promises of God over the situation. Pray, “God, are you not…Have you not…Will you not.” This is a powerful prayer pattern that we can use in our heartbreak.

E - EXPECT God to respond

God has promised to meet you in your pain. He has promised to bind up your broken heart and to be near you as you walk through this season. I want to be careful here, because He has not promised to make it all go away right now, or to fix things the way we want them fixed and on the timetable we’ve laid out. But He has said that He will be with you no matter how the circumstances unfold going forward. Whether I like the outcome or not, whether I get the resolution I want or not, God has promised His sustaining strength, His healing presence, and His unconditional love. And surely the strength of God, the presence of God, and the love of God will be enough for any moment.

I want end to with the same verses that I started with:

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Psalm 147:3

These are the promises of God, and He will be faithful to His Word.

***As we continue our conversations about turning our hearts to God, we realize we are covering some real and difficult emotions. If you would like to talk to someone, we are here for you, and we would love to connect you to resources in our church to help you find the support you need. Need to talk or looking for some support? Email women@saddleback.com and we would love to help you find the support that you need.

Additional resources:

• Support Groups: https://saddleback.com/care/supportgroups

• Celebrate Recovery: https://saddleback.com/connect/ministry/celebrate-recovery/lake-forest?

• Counseling: https://saddleback.com/connect/ministry/church-counselors/lake-forest?