Several years ago the Holy Spirit spoke some words to me that were profound.

You can’t preach to a broken heart.

For many years, I’ve tried healing myself (& praying for healing) through knowledge — biblical & health, mostly. But I’ve overlooked the healing of my most important feature, God’s most coveted possession of mine (& yours): Our hearts.

“Above all else, guard your heart,
    for everything you do flows from it.”

— Proverbs 4

A broken heart, essentially, is not in a position to learn & absorb info. Teaching a broken-hearted person is pointless. Their need is so much greater than mere head knowledge, & it is folly to try! Truth — no matter how freeing in the end — is not what a shattered heart needs most.

Anyone who’s just lost a loved one — or is in the throes of trauma’s first merciless stages, shock & numbness & grief — can attest to this. Your heart is simply not open to receive anything new yet… It’s too shocked & focused on what just happened, what’s gone.

Scripture says, “The heart knows its own bitterness, & no stranger shares its joy” (Proverbs 14). Isn’t that the truth? You can share your highs & lows in life with some people — but no one has lived it like YOU have. Thus no one else but the dearest of friends can appreciate the depths of your losses or the highs of your victories quite like you or those who’ve walked your journey with you — heart friends.

A broken heart is like that. Those around you try their best, but they haven’t walked your path & can’t relate to your journey. They judge your heart instead, speaking Christian platitudes in place of words of LIFE & love & compassion. Or worse yet, they try to tell you what to do next — preaching at you, instead of simply listening & caring for you. They forget (or don’t know) what true brokenheartedness feels like — because it changes everything.

For so long, I’ve been trying to mend this heart — broken through trauma, loss & rejection — through logical means. More Bible study, prayer, “faith” (& my limited understanding of it), Christian service, motherhood, another small group, counseling, fasting, whatever.

But our hearts have minds of their own. They’re so deep & won’t let us “get away” with all the superficial band-aids we try to stick on them. Our true hearts will always clamor for our attention until they’re made whole again. Wholeness is our heart’s “homesostasis” after all, the condition they’re always seeking to return to, God’s intended resting place for them.

You & I must tend to our hearts & rule over them, or THEY WILL RULE US for the rest of our lives! We must train our hearts & be gentle with them. Too often we overlook, ignore & lie to them, saying —

You’re fine. Get it together — it’s not that big a deal.

You shouldn’t be hurt by that. Don’t be so sensitive.

It’s been __ years. Time to move on.

And on & on we coach our heart towards silence. We prevent ourselves from plumbing its depths or freely embracing its happiness! We, after all, know the bitterness of disappointment on the other side of said joys or fear the darkness of sitting with our pain.

So we cover it up with Christian sayings, activities, relationships, pleasures & vain pursuits. But still our heart cries out to be tended to, to be heard! “I’m broken!” it says. “I’m not well. I can’t go on like this”.

For from our heart flows all the issues of life. Our hearts are far too big to be ignored.

It’s possible to have a broken heart for a long time, even a lifetime, if never given time to heal. The more clumsily it’s handled in its first stages, the more it’s tempted to close for good — & the more miraculous healing is.

There are people in life who’ve been walking around with half a heart for many years. All we know to do is tell them the Do’s & Don’ts of our faith or give them great advice. We fail to realize what will truly change them: Touching their hearts with love, not filling their heads with info.

You can’t preach to a broken heart

So quit telling your heart platitudes — it WON’T listen. Quit shutting it off. It’s designed to be open, raw & real. It’s not meant to be a pretty thing tied up in a bow! The heart is at times wild & LOUD. But it’s always present, ebbing & flowing in 1 direction or another: More open & more free, or more hurt & bound up.

Seemingly small triggers can set it off. Where did that reaction of mine come from?, we think. Why did that hurt so much? Our responses bewilder us at times. This shows that, the older we get, the more out of touch we often become with our own hearts. Years of silencing it will do that to you.

The world tells us every day to “fake it til you make it”, so we do. And we wonder why we don’t “know what we want” or can’t find purpose in our lives anymore. Shutting down our hearts does us a great disservice, but that’s the only way we know how to deal with a broken heart, so shut down we must.

So what do you do with a broken heart?

How can you reach someone with a broken heart… or how can your heart be reached if it’s in pieces? Doesn’t that seem silly… to try to touch something that is fragmented? There’s simply no way you can touch the whole thing. It doesn’t exist in one piece anymore.

However, there is something you can do to reach a broken heart:

Love it. Pieces & all.

Love cracks open the door to the heart’s many parts, and with time & patience (so much patience), consistent acts of love rebuild the broken portions of a heart, making ligaments where voids once were.

With more time comes trust & eventually wholeness. Biblical love (the patient & kind type) is the antidote to our heart’s messy existence.

He binds up the broken-hearted!

“Praise the LORD!
How good to sing praises to our God!
How delightful and how fitting!

The LORD is rebuilding Jerusalem
and bringing the exiles back to Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted
and bandages their wounds.”

— Psalm 147

The Lord wants to repair our broken hearts. He doesn’t come at us with biblical prescriptions, 12 step programs, or sermons on forgiveness. Yes, those are all helpful — but His first gesture towards us is so tender & saturated with His love.

God wraps up our broken pieces & hugs them close. His words are few, if any. Just like Job’s (initially) wise friends, He understands that words aren’t what we’re ready for yet. His agenda is to extend compassion towards our unwholeness FIRST, before He eventually — with our permission & cooperation — heals & restores us.

At times of a loved one’s great brokenness, our words should be few. Sermons & “they’re in a better place”-es aren’t what people need from us most at that time. Can you imagine someone saying that to you, days after losing your beloved spouse or your precious, irreplaceable child?

No no no. Callous Christian, if this is your response, ask the Lord to give you HIS heart towards that person & their pain. Have you forgotten what a broken heart feels like… or is it possible yours hasn’t been shattered before?

Have you forgotten that Scripture says in our weakness, even the Holy Spirit doesn’t use words, but “intercedes for us through wordless groans”?

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 

And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

— Romans 8 (emphases mine)

It’s hard to imagine the God of the universe being speechless, yet sometimes our broken hearts & agony don’t merit His words. Groans of anguish are all He can mutter on our behalf. Wow, pretty amazing huh? I don’t know about you, but I’ve been there before.

Broken people lead broken lives

I found it so easy to “preach” to people before my heart was hit with shock & pain. Then afterwards, I suddenly began seeing the whole world & people’s really bad choices through the prism of pain.

I realize so much now that people with broken hearts don’t have the capacity to make better decisions. They’re simply living a broken existence because their most priceless treasure — their heart — is torn in two (or more) pieces.

God’s not preaching at you, broken-hearted one! He’s not preaching at the people of this world, saying “Get it together” or “Just change your ways & I’ll love you!”

No! Instead His Word says:

“God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  — Romans 5

And this beauty:

“We love, because He first loved us.”  — 1 John 4

He first approaches you with His love, knowing that somewhere along your journey, real love was withheld from you — betrayed, abused, lost, abandoned or destroyed — and you’ve been living broken ever since.

Please know that He never wanted that for you. Our God is NOT the author of disunity, destruction or death! (Someone else is).

Pour out your heart to Him, dear one

“Trust in Him at all times, O people;

pour out your heart before Him;

God is a refuge for us. Selah”

— Psalm 62

Have you ever shared with God what broke your heart & asked Him to fix it? 

No matter how long ago, He longs to hear your heart. Have you poured it out to Him? Why don’t you?

On this eve of America’s day of Freedom, let’s remember what made our country free to begin with — the tenants of God — & what makes us free every day since: His Spirit.

We must invite the Spirit into our hearts so He can heal & free them:

“The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”  — 2 Cor. 3

I’ll leave you with a powerful passage, Jesus’s stated purpose on earth:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;

To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,

To grant those who mourn in Zion,
Giving them a garland instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting.
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.

Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins,
They will raise up the former devastations;
And they will repair the ruined cities,
The desolations of many generations.

Strangers will stand and pasture your flocks,
And foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers.

But you will be called the priests of the LORD;
You will be spoken of as ministers of our God.
You will eat the wealth of nations,
And in their riches you will boast.
Instead of your shame you will have a double portion,
And instead of humiliation they will shout for joy over their portion.
Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land,
Everlasting joy will be theirs.
For I, the LORD, love justice,
I hate robbery in the burnt offering;
And I will faithfully give them their recompense
And make an everlasting covenant with them.
Then their offspring will be known among the nations,
And their descendants in the midst of the peoples.
All who see them will recognize them
Because they are the offspring whom the LORD has blessed.

I will rejoice greatly in the LORD,
My soul will exult in my God;
For He has clothed me with garments of salvation,
He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness…”

— Isaiah 61 (emphases mine)