Today, I share a story to tell you what heartbreak taught me. Years ago, before I dated my husband, I fell in love or lust or had a deep crush. Now, I had a few boy relationships complex in nature before I met my husband, but I dated no one. I was from the generation of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Plus, I was socially awkward and terrified.
After I left college and started my career, I fell in a deep, dark pit in my spiritual life. I have talked about it many times so sorry if this is old news. 😊 While I was in the pit, I was spiritually compromised and weak, given to defeat and sin.
I was still a “good girl,” which if you’ve not read Emily Freeman’s book means I didn’t understand grace or not working my way out of the pit by trying hard. It was during this time that people close to me told me to go out and get laid because they too were in a weak place. I still found them telling me that mortifying and that was not gonna happen. My mind was not given to total depravity. But, despite what most would think, it is no small thing to lose intimacy with Christ or to lose your direction. You are one choice away from destitution and doing all the wrong things and total depravity.
That’s the mental state I was in when I met said boy. It is not worth stirring up my heart to share lots of details. But despite any other boy relationships I had in the past, he might as well have been my first love. We didn’t date, but we were great friends. We did many things together, and I let my heart go places I’d never allowed it to go before.
Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. -Song of Solomon
As are most male-female relationships, ours was complex. We spent time together, talked on the phone, visited churches together, and more. Thankfully, for all the time and energy we spent on one another, he never made any physical advances. I should have known he did not like me that way, but he flirted, spent time and energy on me, and in every other way besides physical advance, I thought (or perhaps hoped) he showed signs of likening me back. I was naive.
After a lot of time passed, I worked up the nerve to tell him how I felt, despite my belief in the man as initiator. I decided something had to happen or we had to stop being friends. The day I told him I cared for him, he told me he did not feel the same way. My heart shattered into a million little pieces. I bravely told him he ought not to treat a girl so callously, stringing me along to stroke his ego. I will never know if he ever really cared for me as a friend.
Perhaps he had news for me too that day. Because one week later, he took my already broken heart and shattered it some more. He’d secretly met the girl of his dreams and had gotten her pregnant. They were getting married right away. He spent time with her and had still found time for me. Looking back maybe he was more distant, but not by much. Maybe the distance created my courage to speak my feelings. Whatever the case, I was shocked.
I listened to melancholy music, cried a ton, and prayed everyday for that baby. This was not my first loss and certainly was not my last, but it was the first time I let the pain run over me deeply. I was crushed in so many ways, and yet for so many reasons, I had to pretend as if the world kept turning.
He’d once told me that men in his family have only boys, so I prayed for a girl. I prayed day in and day out as if my life depended on it. I prayed for a girl so he would learn how to hold a girl’s heart in his hands with care and so that his ego would be humbled. Never have I ever been as much like Hannah in desperation in my life. My prayer was me asking God to see me, show me justice, and avenge the wrong that had occurred. I prayed too for said boy to love God totally and completely.
I don’t know what kind of man he turned out to be. After the discussion where he told me he was getting married, we never spoke again. Just like getting in a time machine, I was erased from existence. I don’t know if he became a mighty man of God, but I was elated when I heard he’d had a baby girl.
God heard and answered my prayers.
What Heartbreak Taught Me
The Lord is absolutely close to the brokenhearted. (Psalm 34:18)
God is good, and He did not have to give that man a daughter. Maybe my prayers had absolutely nothing to do with it, but I will always believe they did. In a time when I was more distant from God that I wanted to be, He allowed me to be crushed. That crushing drew me closer than ever to him, even though I was still learning the goodness of God. I might not have felt a sense of His presence, but He was with me. He saw me and heard me, and He lavished His love on me.
Every single one of us needs to be head over heels in love with Jesus.
Keep the main thing the main thing.
He rescued me because He delighted in me. (Psalm 18:19) I wasn’t loved by the one my heart wanted, but I was loved. (still am).
God is jealous for us. He wants all our thoughts to be of Him. He wants our lives to be undone because of all He has done for us.
God reminds me of my prayers often when I walk in defeat or discouragement or believe that my prayers are not heard. More often, I rarely feel as deeply or as broken as I did that first time my heart was crushed. He begs me to be that desperate and broken over the things that grieve Him and at times supposedly grieve me. Father God asks me to pray consistently and as desperately as that time my heart ached. He asks me to be that sold out and in love with Him as is nothing else before me.
God wants us to be desperate in our prayers.
When I think of this event, the thing that strikes me the most is that I was diligent and desperate in my prayer life. My heart was tender and hurting. Because I was so raw, instead of thinking of the one thing I would never have, I prayed for the one thing he would always have. That raw pain broke open a place of desperation unlike any other. The ache was constant and continual, so instead of focusing on the pain, I prayed.
If we experience self-inflicted, man-inflicted, or God-inflicted wounds, we can trust that God will use them for our own good.
Though I knew some sense of God’s goodness right after the event (His protection for example), the good for me in particular has become clearer over time, still teaching me to draw near in broken hallelujahs.
Pain is an important part of ministry
I wouldn’t necessarily say that I have ever used this story to minister to others. But of all the things I have learned from this story, it is probably this. Pain is a great motivator that drives us to the feet of Jesus. Without Jesus, we have no ministry. Those with truly great ministries have most likely been through or are still going through a significant amount of pain. Oh that we would pray to be broken, not just broken and annoyed, but broken and spilled out, driven low and to His feet. The thought of praying for brokenness this significant terrifies me now that I am older, and yet, God is still good, no matter the suffering we undergo in this life.
Sometimes, you can be afflicted and look the same.
People may not wear their broken hearts on their sleeves, and yet they may be suffering in significant ways, so treat everyone as if they are.
Such a heartfelt share Jamie… heartbreaks, oh my, they change our lives forever… Thank you for being the strong woman you are, He has dressed you beautifully in humility and grace.