Who hasn’t suffered the stinging pain of a broken heart or unrequited love? If you live long enough you will.
Isn’t there a famous quote about love? Oh, here it is.
I hold it true, whate’er befall;I feel it when I sorrow most;‘Tis better to have loved and lost,Than never to have loved at all.
Poetic words from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s work “In Memoriam A.H.H.” He was referring to the sudden death of his great friend who was engaged to his sister but died before they married.
We tend to use it to refer to lost romantic relationships rather than death. How did this turn into an English Poetry lesson???
At any rate – love hurts. (I’m sure I could now quote several rock songs but won’t).
What follows is a poetic story about a broken heart, shattered dreams and God’s amazing rebuilding skills.
I stared uncomprehendingly across the table as he repeated his previous sentence, “I just don’t know if I can be faithful to you for the rest of our lives.” Suddenly, I felt an unfamiliar feeling. Instead of being drawn to this man, my first love and fiancé, I felt the need to flee. My ears heard my mouth form the words, “Then I guess I can’t marry you,” as I stood and walked out of the student union.
In the exhaustion of hours of mid-finals study, my tired mind and thudding heart could hardly grasp what had just happened. Not only had I allowed myself to love deeply and completely, but I was convinced that marrying this man was God’s plan for me. I was smitten with the way he had let me into his world when so many others were excluded. I loved that he was a musician who expressed his feelings with the notes from his fingers and the sound of his song. I couldn’t believe that I was the one that he had chosen, and I felt utterly connected to him.
Until that moment.
When it all shattered.
Where once I felt loved, I now felt rejected. Where once I felt secure, I felt rocked. Where once I felt sure of my happy future, the future seemed bleak and unlit.
I suffered alone in misery, believing that this set-back was temporary and that he’d come around. Finally, one night at mid-night, after the realization of the finality set in, I called my parents wordlessly sobbing. My panicked father finally calmed me enough to hear the story, and he gently asked, “Amy, are you ok? Are you going to hurt yourself?”
I responded, “I’m not going to hurt myself, but I wouldn’t get out of the way of a speeding bus either.”
That despair lasted for months. The fog just wouldn’t seem to lift. I kept trying to reach out to fix things, but the relationship was too broken. There was nothing to do but move on, and I just couldn’t seem to do it. I continued through exams and my activities with a plastic smile covering a broken heart. I even went to church, going through the spiritual motions, but instead of turning to God for healing, I withdrew inside.
One night, alone in my apartment, I felt God drawing me. At first I resisted. Finally, with a sense of needing to get the worst over (I was convinced that God was angry with me for pushing Him away), I laid flat on the rug of my bedroom with my face to the floor. I waited for God’s wrath but what I experienced, in a way that I’ve never felt before or since, was the overwhelming, physical presence of God’s Love. He surrounded me, enveloped me, comforted me and began healing me.
Twenty-five years later, I think back to those devastating days with a wry smile. That younger version of myself, rejected by her first love, thought that things couldn’t get better. Today I know that God rescued me from myself. He saved me from a decision to join my life with someone who was shattered himself and would have left my life in pieces behind him.
The future that seemed so bleak all those years ago has turned out to be bright—not perfect, certainly, but joyful. Jesus was there through every painful step of those early days of break-up. In the place of a sorrowful heart, He gave a heart of compassion for those who have felt rejection and hurt. He has given me a devoted and loving husband, two amazing boys and purpose in my ministry work. My life isn’t perfect, but it’s good. God took the shattered pieces and made a beautiful mosaic.
Amy is the blissful director of Proverb 31 Ministries’ Next Step Speaker Services and a member of the ministry’s speaker team. She lives in NC with her 3 favorite guys and a little, red dachshund. You can find Amy on any given day typing at her computer, reading a book or trying to figure out an alternative to cooking dinner. Visit Amy at www.amycarroll.org and find out more about the speaker service at www.nextstepspeakerservices.org.
Special thanks to Amy for sharing with my bloggy friends! (I know bloggy isn’t a word – yet!).
I met Amy through Proverbs 31 Ministries and I’ve had the pleasure of her encouragement when I utilized her speaker services a few years ago. If you need help or assistance in this area of your career/ministry, be sure to visit her site. www.nextstepspeakerservices.org.
I’d love to hear your stories of how you moved from a broken heart into joy?
Your story could be just the encouragement that someone else needs!
Comment or send your story via the contact page.
Till the next time,
Julie
One last reminder….God’s love for you is steadfast, constant and unconditional. And those aren’t my words, those are HIS.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Read all of Romans 8
great encouragement! God holds the future… we only need to trust Him with it. I know I know… easier said than done. he never said it would be easy, just worth it!
As someone who is still single at almost 40 this is such an encouragement! It reminds me that God’s plan is sovereign…that His plans are best…and that He loves us so much that He will allow us to be brokenhearted instead of making a mistake and becoming broken as a person. I think the feelings of rejection are similar. One is “why aren’t I enough for this person” and the other is “why aren’t enough for anyone”. But as Amy’s story reminds us (me)…it’s not about us “not being enough”. We totally are. It’s about that God had (and has) BETTER.
Thank you for sharing this!
What a great story! It is such a relief yo know we serve a God who gives us good things despite the bad decisions we make. I’ve experienced His mercy time and time again, and can’t imagine where I would be if He had given me exactly what I asked for. I identify with the brokenness Amy talks about with regards to a broken heart … I’m especially grateful God took me away front that person–He knows so much better than we do! Thank you for sharing that, friend!!