Love Heals Your Heart

Do you ever have those moments when a song that you've heard a thousand times before will just suddenly hit you with a brand new meaning?  That very thing happened to me tonight, but I must tell you, in a nutshell, why this song meant to me what it did.  These past few weeks have been what I consider to be the hardest yet of my entire life.  After almost 2 and a half years of dating the same guy, he broke up with me in an email.  Modern conveniences have made it easier to communicate with people than ever before, BUT what men need to know early on is that most women, including myself, need face-to-face discussions for closure. I won't go into the painful details of our last discussion, but my now-ex-boyfriend told me that closure was irrelevant.  Now I as a woman beg very much to differ on that claim.  Closure may be irrelevant to him and to many other guys out there, but to women, closure is so very important!!!  I can't stress this enough.  First of all, guys, you need to realize that we women are emotional creatures whose hearts are very much into everything we do and everything that happens in our lives.  When you love someone, you consider them and their feelings, even when your intention is to terminate your relationship with them.  The Bible tells us that we should treat each other with love and respect, even when it comes to our enemies.  Now whether or not you consider the person you plan on breaking up with to be your enemy is your own opinion, but it makes it SO MUCH EASIER on the both of you if you end your relationship as friends or at least in a friendly way.  After all, who needs more enemies?  "What do you prefer? Shall I come to you with a whip, or in love and with a gentle spirit?" (1 Cor 4:21)   I for one would at least like to know there aren't any hard feelings and that person isn't dreaming of sweet revenge, not that God would be pleased with that anyway, but I think you get my drift.  Email is NOT the best way.  Face-to-face is best, or over the phone, but make it personal and considerate of the other person. I can't tell you how many sleepless nights I've had, tossing and turning, dreaming and wishing that things had been handled in a better way.  I would've appreciated a face-to-face sit-down chat about the reasons why we needed to break up.  I would've listened and honored the fact that he took the time to tell me all about it, hear what I had to say, and make it a "we" thing instead of a  "him" thing.  If there's one thing that's stressed a whole lot in God's Word, it's the don't-be-selfish thing. "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…" – Philippians 2:3-5.  I've never gone through a breakup before.  This was my very first relationship.  So many people have told me that after they broke up or were broken up with, they went on the rebound, looking for a new relationship right off the bat, trying to fill the void.  I had told myself "I'll never go through that.  I'm stronger than that.  Guys aren't everything in life after all."  I am sadly mistaken.  I feel as if a part of my heart has been ripped away and I am scrambling to replace it with another warm beating heart to ease the pain.  God, in His wisdom, tries to remind me constantly that the healing and fulfillment I'm looking for can be found in Him if only I would take my hands away from trying to scoop up all the emotional blood pumping out of me onto the floor and let Him take over.  For then would He clean the wound, replacing what blood was lost with His very own, and sew my heart up, restoring my life once again.  We have such a wonderful, generous, and loving God.  When I chose to follow Him, He washed me in His blood, but when I'm hurt and bleeding, He has His very own blood bank standing by, so that His life and healing may run with vigor through our spiritual veins, giving us peace and joy in our circumstances and strength in our weakness.  Our Great Physician is more than just a doctor doing his duty in trying to save our life, He is the Lover of our very soul "Who is not willing that any should perish."  Most times when we get hurt, we sit in the corner and try to nurse our own wounds.  But unfortunately, we can't see the problems that come when we depend on ourselves to fix things.  The infections of bitterness, depression and low self-image set in, warping our minds and destroy any possibility of having an effect for Christ.  When that email came, I was devastated.  I hadn't expected the emotions I ended up feeling.  But God reminded me that He knew that was going to happen.  When I asked Him why, a verse from His Word came to mind… "All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)   Wow!  It's really awesome when God works fast like that.  He'd shown me that He knew this would be a really painful experience in my life, but that He would be there for me through it and had plans to make me stronger and give me more understanding through it.  It's a tough way to learn, but because of it, I can finally relate to those who have gone through a breakup and are picking up the pieces.  With God's help, I can show them how to get through it all and how God can use even the pain for His glory.  Last week, I was driving down the highway on the way to a job interview, but I was not in the best frame of mind.  Tears were streaming down my face as thoughts of what I had lost and how empty my heart was feeling shot through my mind.  I flipped radio stations often, looking for something to distract me.  A man's voice on one channel caught my interest and I took my hand off the knob and listened.  He was talking about how even after Jesus had been raised from the dead and h ad His glorified body, He still had the scars on His hands and feet from the nails driven through Him to suspend Him from the cross.  This was His brand new body, free of disease and pain and problems.  So why would God choose for Jesus' glorified body to keep the scars He'd received in such a brutal way?  His scars first of all served as a witness to the fact that He had been raised from the dead.  But what really hit my heart was the next reason the man on the radio stated:  so that we might see that Jesus has gone through earthly pain and rejection and can relate to the pain we feel.  The man went on to observe that when people go through horrible experiences that leave scars on their hearts and on their bodies, they usually think those scars only say that they went through that pain and have to carry that memory with them through life.  The man on the radio then said something that changed my tears of loneliness to tears of joy.  "Scars are the outside proof that healing has taken place on the inside.  Instead of seeing those scars as proof that you were hurt, see those scars as a reminder that Jesus has healed you, letting them be a testimony of His healing power for all to see."  Those words comforted me like you wouldn't believe, and I hope they do the same for you.  It's been and still is a long and hard journey for me.  Today was really hard, dealing with a whole lot of memories that just come and invade my mind.  I started focusing again on what I didn't have anymore and walked around in a hopeless state for a few hours.  I went outside and just wandered, breathing in the fresh air, looking around at the beauty of the fall leaves, listening to the birds going crazy in the trees as I walked past.  That alone just about cleared my head.  Everyone feels God more keenly through different things.  For me, He shows me so much through nature.  It's been said that God "romances" us through His creation, whether it's the night stars or the rushing wind or the melting sunset.  To put it plainly, I felt very "romanced" today as I walked out there.  It was almost as if I had a boyfriend again, except I felt at peace knowing that this one "would never leave me or forsake me" and that I should "be content with Him and confident in Him" knowing that.  (Hebrews 13:5b-6)  It is now that the song I mentioned at the beginning of this soapbox episode comes into play.  Playing the piano is one of my passions since music seems to bring me closer than anything else to fully worshipping my God.  One of my favorite collections happens to be the Phantom of the Opera.  Oh, there are some beautiful songs in there, none of which are really about God at all, which makes my experience that much more amazing.  The song "All I Ask of You" has always charmed me with its chord changes and sweet melody, but tonight, I took a closer look at the words.  Read them carefully…  ALL I ASK OF YOU No more talk of darkness Forget these wide-eyed fears I'm here Nothing can harm you My words will warm and calm you Let me be your freedom Let daylight dry your tears I'm here With you, beside you To guard you and to guide you S ay you love me every waking moment Turn my head with talk to summertime Say you need me with you now and always Promise me that all you say is true That's all I ask of you Let Me be your shelter Let Me be your light You're safe No one will find you Your fears are far behind you All I want is freedom A world with no more night And you Always beside me To hold me and to hide me Then say you'll share with Me one love, One lifetime Let Me lead you from your solitude Say you want me And you need me Beside you Anywhere you go, let me go too That's all I ask of you Say you'll share with Me one love One lifetime Say the word and I will follow you Share each day with Me, Each night, each morning Say you love me You know I do Love me, that's all I ask of you Love Me, that's all I ask of you Now that you've read it once, go back and imagine that God is the One singing the bold type and we are singing the rest.  It takes on a whole new meaning, doesn't it?  Like He's romancing us, right?  Especially that part about "leading" me "from my solitude."  I've felt so alone, but I'm the one who's been distancing myself from the very Lover of my Soul Who longs to comfort me and heal my broken heart.  I have cried so many times in these last few weeks, a few times so hard I felt I was trying to scrape the grief from the depths of my heart.  But no matter how hard or deep I cried, the pain just wouldn't let go.  My pastor read a verse from Romans that fit quite well.  "And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." Romans 8:26-27.  I couldn't even express the amount of pain I was feeling, not in words, not in how hard I cried, not anything.  But I could take comfort in the knowledge that God knew what I was feeling right then and understood and was ministering to me the way He knew I needed to be.  He's the best Lover there is.  I want to end this entry with yet another song whose truth has touched my heart and still brings me to tears.  "Did you think you were immune to this? Did you think you could escape without infection? You do all you're able to resist Just to avoid the danger of rejection Memory warns you of the past When it all went wrong When you think your life is shattered And there's no way to be fixed again Love heals your heart At a time you least expected You're alive like you have never been Love heals your heart Everybody has a wall to climb That was built to guard the pain that holds them captive And every smile that they would hide behind Will try to mask the hurt beneath the surface Sometimes it's hard to understand How we're trapped inside When you think your life is shattered And there's no way to be fixed again Love heals your heart At a time you least expected You're alive like you have never been Love heals your heart, love heals your heart" Please don't continue to sit in that dark corner and nurse your own wounds.  Turn to Him and let His everlasting, unconditional, fulfilling love heal your heart.  "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:6-7. Praying that you find peace and joy in Him,  Vanessa ;) <><  "God can do whatever He wants to do however He wants to do it, and He chooses to work through us because He loves us."  - Facing the Giants