We call it a broken heart. What a graphic term to describe our emotional wounds. The core of my being, cracked, busted, shattered like a egg.
The cause is a painful loss in life. The loss of a friend, a lover, a job, a family member or a home. In these situations the damage is so dramatic it leaves us feeling listless, defeated, empty and hopeless. We wonder if we can keep on going.

While many of us, in these times, find help by turning to friends, therapists and doctors, there is Someone else that cares greatly about our wounds. His name is Jesus.

Jesus once announced that the purpose of his mission was to bind up the brokenhearted, fulfilling what the prophets had predicted about the Messiah. Like a doctor bandaging a wound, Jesus’ mission was and is to bandage and mend our broken hearts.

There was a woman named Mary Magdalene whose heart and life was completely shattered. There is no way for us to know the full extent of her emotional and spiritual abuse. But she knew full well what it was to have a broken heart. It was Jesus who came to her healing her heart and setting her free.

Recently I was able to see a young woman’s heart healed who’d lost her husband at an early age to cancer. Sometimes healing a broken heart takes time. Now two years later she is filled with hope and joy because of Jesus’ touch in her life.

There is something else to notice about a broken heart. As people made in God’s image we long for things to be put right–justice. We hope for the good, the true, the loving and the beautiful. Since non of us have even been to a perfect world, where does this longing for goodness, justice, love and beauty come from. It pre-exists in all of us. It’s this hopeful longing in utter darkness that points us to the light.

I have discovered in my loneliest moments that Someone is there with me whose name is Jesus. He is the healer of my broken heart. He is the One who quietly walks with me during my loss. He never leaves me and is with me always, eventually healing my broken heart.

So, what if His desire is to bandage our hearts and make us whole? What if he truly cares? What if He loves me more than I could know? What if all I have to do is trust Him with my broken heart and ask Him to make it whole?