she broke me

The first time I heard this, I sobbed. My friend Carlee was up for icuTalks, a mental health speaking ministry that’s housed in our church. She read this poem by Sarah Mae and I lost it. I went home and told Peter about it and lost it. Every time I’ve thought about it since, I’ve lost it.

I’m currently sitting in a cute little diner losing it. Bless this lone waitress as I am currently her only patron and there is no one else to divert attention to.

She could be a lot of people. She is a lot of people. She reminds me of all the she’s who are no longer in my life, many of whom were at once so connected to me that the scars from their removal are still tender to the touch.

I don’t have answers for the pain. I don’t have solutions for future relationships. I don’t know how to fully engage in deep relationship without getting hurt. I don’t know if the heartache will ever dull as is evidenced by these tears, which feel like both a release of the past and the fear that this pattern will continue into the future.

But I can tell you this: when the world breaks your heart, God is there to put the pieces back together.

every. single. time.

He gathers up the outcasts and brings them home.
He heals the wounds of every shattered heart.
Psalm 147:2-3 TPT

If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there:
if you’re kicked in the gut, He’ll help you find your breath.
Psalm 34:18 MSG

He will not leave you. He will not turn on you. He will not change His opinion of you. He will not talk about you to other people. He will not change His behavior to make you question if He was ever the person you thought He was. He will never pretend to be what He’s not. He will never shatter your heart and he will heal the wounds when the world does.

What she breaks, He will fix. Not for her, maybe not for the relationship, but for and within you. And that is an okay place to start. Friend, you cannot begin to work on the relationship when there is so much present hurt. Call it boundaries, call it space, call it whatever suits you best, but you can’t expect to heal a wound that’s constantly being ripped back open. If you want to fix the hurt, you have to let God start within you.

Go to therapy. Pray. Read books on self-awareness. Listen to worship songs that remind you how much God loves you. Force yourself to recognize the small, even seemingly insignificant, ways that other people show up for you. Feel the pain and the absence. Allow yourself to grieve, to be angry, to go through the phase of distancing. But keep your heart tender and let God help you heal.

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Ephesians 3:42 ESV

Be tenderhearted. Do not let the world make you hard. Then, and only then, will you have the option to reconcile. Even if that never includes an interaction with her again. One day you will get to the place where a memory of her or randomly seeing her out in public will not make you catch your breath, have to hold back tears (or punches) or make you want to shut down. And when that day comes, it will be the evidence of your healing.

Then, and only then, will you be able to see the humanity of other people, including the person who hurt you so. You will be able to see her brokenness. And you will find tenderness, grace and understanding creeping in. If interaction is a viable next step, that’s great. But don’t let that be your end goal. The point is not to cultivate every relationship so that there is never separation. Life plays in seasons and stages and with that comes natural, inevitable endings.

The goal, the healing, the wholeness comes when you can see her brokenness and the love of God within you aches for her healing, too.