Hope in Heartbreak

A Reflection on the Psalm for June 21st, 2020:
​Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Psalm 69

R. Lord, in your steadfast love, answer me.

It is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that shame has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my kindred, an alien to my mother’s children. It is zeal for your house that has consumed me; the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. 

R. Lord, in your steadfast love, answer me.

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me. With your steadfast help, rescue me. Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me. 

R. Lord, in your steadfast love, answer me.

Let the oppressed see it and be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive. For the Lord hears the needy, and does not despise his own that are in bonds. Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and everything that moves in them. 

R. Lord, in your steadfast love, answer me.

Pause. Pray.

And then read more...

Heartbreak. That’s what I hear in this psalm. “Lord in your steadfast love, answer me,” the psalmist pleads. I can hear the despair in the writer’s voice. They are at their wits end. I know that feeling—and I think you know it too. There is much in our world that breaks our hearts. Isolation from loved ones, tragic deaths, senseless violence, and racial injustice. So many instances that strip away the dignity of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Some may find themselves suffering from compassion fatigue; the sense of indifference that comes from frequent bad news that appears to have no end. It’s enough to not only break my heart, but also harden it. Heartbreak changes us. The emptiness that enters the heart when love in some shape or form is taken away from us in some way—that is heartbreak. It can be hard to know how to fill that void again, but often we try hard to fill it with a whole multitude of things.
 
But what if we don’t focus on the void, but rather, on the pieces of the heart that remain.

In my chaplaincy days, heartbreak was a common occurrence. I had no idea how much the heart could break until I walked with parents who had to say good-bye to a child, sometimes an infant, all too soon. In those intense moments of heartache, parents, and sometimes staff, would turn to me. But what did I really have to offer? My heart was also breaking—for them. Yet the broken pieces of all our hearts could come together to make a whole. We could lean on one another in order to help each other keep going. Not forgetting the person lost, but rather carrying them in the parts of our heart that remain and remembering the love that was; a love to be celebrated and brought forward. And that love, is what fills the void of any heartbreak. God put that love there. More importantly, He will make the heart whole when it is broken. He will soften it when it is hardened. He put Love there. That’s what I think steadfast love is: Love that endures not just in the good times but in the difficult times—sometimes some really difficult times.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on my own actions, after all, as the saying goes, “You can’t change people, you can only change yourself.” How am I going to change in order to make the world a better place?
 
Lord, how can I open what’s left of my heart and witness You?
 
God’s love mends broken hearts with a Love that only He can give. I can choose to live out of the Love God placed, and continues to place in my heart, so that I can change heartbreak into hope. All I have to do is call on Him and allow Him to love me—because in the Lord’s steadfast love, He answers me.


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Aurea Sadi

Photo by Jen Theodore on Unsplash

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