here are things i know for sure: when you think you're right, you are most likely wrong. things that break - be they bones, hearts, or promises-can be put back together but will never really be whole.
i saw this quote on somebody's facebook status yesterday, and i've been turning it over in my head for the past 36 hours. at first when i read it, i thought, word. it seemed so fitting for how i was feeling. but the more i've thought about it, the more i've realized that it just isn't true.
i've had an assorment of broken bones. i've been promised a million different things that never came to fruition. and i've had several broken hearts; one that i did not think would ever heal, a couple that took a really long time, and others that mended as quickly as they broke. it's hard to see the other side of hurt when you're hurting, but once you've made it through it once, the next time you can remind yourself that you've been okay before, and you'll be okay again. i think that's jesus' role in hurt (part of it, anyway). he came to make things new - to give a fresh start. if our hearts were never to be whole again after a break, then god is not the god he claims to be in isaiah when he promises:
"forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. see, i am doing a new thing! now it springs up; do you not perceive it? i am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland" (v. 18-19).
he is the god of new things - of second chances - of fresh starts. he also promises in ezekiel 36:26 to give us a new heart. he will completely take away the broken heart and give us a new, whole heart any time we ask (which is repeatedly for some of us, myself included). praise the lord for this truth!
knowing this, i can also admit that i don't believe we're ever the same after a heart break. it changes you - for the better or for the worse - but regardless, it changes you. if you let jesus use it in your life for his glory, he can teach you so much about depending on him, trusting him, letting him be your healer. but if you let it, it will eat you up from the inside out, leaving you angry, bitter, and not much fun to be around. i don't think we ever forget about the people or circumstances that hurt us. i don't think we're supposed to. i think we're supposed to forgive, but i don't think we're supposed to forget. in the old testament (i have no idea where; i can picture it in my bible, underlined and highlighted, but i couldn't tell you the book or chapter right now), the lord reminds his people to remember all of the things he's shown them and taught them - that was the point of altars that the people set up all over the place: to remember the deliverance, the redemption, the provision that had occurred there.
i hope that as i walk through a little bit of heart ache right now, that the lord will be faithful to give me (another) new heart - a whole heart - a heart like his. i also hope that he will help me to forgive the heart that hurt me, but that he won't ever let me forget the ways he is changing me and shaping me and encouraging me and loving on me right now. i want to carry these things with me.
thank you, father, for being the god of second and third and fourth chances and new beginnings every day!
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