Grammar Police Officer

Let My Heart Break with the Things that Break Your Heart, O God

I have been praying for you a lot these weeks, and I still am.

I am glad you are back. Waiting is a hard place to be, and I’m sorry you have been there so long. Now, you are still waiting, but you are waiting with HOPE (hope that is secure, based on Jesus) that you’ll see your Mom again.

I was thinking about “Let my heart break for the things that break your heart, O God” this morning on parking lot duty. If my heart broke each time God’s heart broke, I’d bleed to death. I don’t have his love or his power or his knowledge, and I couldn’t handle it. But my heart breaks over some things, and for the things that don’t break my heart, others’ hearts break over those things. So someone is in Calcutta, taking care of orphans who live in garbage dumps, and I am here, teaching kids who need me to teach them and love on them.

My heart breaks for you, A. And L. And for M. And D. And others who know loss and death. It hurts! That is true, and when I hurt for your sake, or L's sake, or M's sake, or D's sake, I commit that hurt to Jesus. He wept. He knows loss just as much as any of us…even better than we do. His heart breaks for you and your loss, and I wish I could express my sorrow for your sake better than this, but I cannot.

I pray for you, and I am glad to have you back. You are created to be a teacher, A, and here is where you are called this year, with your students, to shepherd their minds and hearts. I am glad, and we all are, that you stayed with your Mom as long as you did, that you got to be there for the miracle of her faith being made sure! You got to be there for the moment she saw our Jesus, and while it hurts, I’m glad you got to see your Mom’s hope and trust in Jesus being proved right.

It hurts that we have to stay here and live in the in-between stage of faith and hope. We know the faith is sure, but it’s hard to keep believing. So I pray with the centurion, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”