Dear Brokenhearted,
You’re afraid the pain will never end, like it’s a limitless tunnel with no bright light, a cloud lacking a silver lining, a foolish hope in a childish faith. Your heart beats inside you, but it feels too much. It feels too deeply. It feels too often. If only you could rip it out and submit it to your will, then you would be free from its distractions. But what you really fear is that it won’t be able to stand up against this present pain, and it will cease to beat. You don’t want it to become this broken, useless thing in your chest…you don’t want to be brokenhearted.
If only you realized how close God really is to you in your grief, how the Lord binds the wounds of the injured, how He alone can soothe your heartache. But you know, don’t you? Yet this time it feels like He let you down causing you to become some abandoned orphan with no protection or guidance in the storms of life. You fear that what all your friends say is true–God really is dead. You know in your broken heart, they are wrong. He has to be near; He has never left you before.
Still you wander knocking on doors that remain closed carrying your heart in your clumsy hands. It’s easier to give up than to get up, but you go on anyway. You know what the Bible says, you know you are not alone, though you cannot remember a lonelier moment in your life. You wonder if this is how Jesus felt when He drew away from the crowds for solitude times of prayer and what it felt like when the disciples just couldn’t understand what He said. You feel like that, too, like no one gets it. How could they though? This is your experience, a burden which you and you alone carry, but God is still in the equation.
The weight of your pain would crush you if not for Him. Your hope would be in vain if not for Him. Your despair would overtake you completely if it were not for Him. He is close; you realize that now. If only God were face-to-face with you, if only His physical presence would manifest itself in this moment, if only you didn’t live in a fallen world…if only your heart wasn’t broken. Someday you know it won’t hurt this badly and you’ll be stronger and happier. You will walk hand-in-hand with your Lover, joyfully and gleefully. Not today. Today you will eat bitter herbs and cover yourself with ashes begging Him for a reprieve. You are broken and open. You are contrite and willing. You are desperate for change.
Oh, dear beloved, He is so near to you now, so close to your grief, so willing to bind up your broken heart. Know your tears do not fall in vain, that your sobs do not echo into the night unheard, that you do not hope foolishly. Your heart will not be broken forever, yet it draws you close to Him. It brings you nearer than you dare come when you are not so wounded and makes you more vulnerable than you usually allow yourself to be.
Rest now, for the journey has been too much, and give Him your broken heart. Do not hold on to it; do not nurse your wound or lick it in secret like a stray dog. You must offer it to God freely, openly, and desperately. You will find healing and you will wake up from this nightmare. Oh, dear brokenhearted child, He is close to you now, so close. Don’t be afraid; just believe.
Written by Amy Sondova
She is Beloved 
I just finished taking our church through the book of Job and processing the problem of pain in our lives. Yesterday we looked at how “rescue” can come without the trial going away… and other times the whole thing wraps up nicely (so we can develop a cliche about it).
The main idea, though, is that rescue begins when we give dignity to our suffering and do our best to let the next breath after it to be one of faith (see Job 19). I like how your post here seems to do both.