Psalm 34:18 “The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Each morning when I wake up out of my deep sleep, the first thing I do is make a mental a note of how I feel, and I can’t wait to open the Word and meet with the Lord. Processing pain and grief and embracing the daily lessons God has for me are daily endeavors. Every day, I need a little bit more light to illuminate my way out of the darkness that presses in around me. Daily meeting with the Lord is a necessity for me; just like I can’t eat enough food in one meal to last me all week, I need a spiritual meal each day if I want to walk through the day without experiencing overwhelming discouragement. The Word is designed to feed my hurting soul a little bit every day and it gives me something to chew on throughout the day. I am desperate to find a salve to sooth the searing and emotional pain that has invaded my life and presses down like a huge weight which threatens to drag me down daily, deeper and deeper into a pit of despair. Deep down I know that it is not who I want to be, and I know that people who are brokenhearted are not fun to be around, but I just can’t help myself. This I do know, however, God loves to be near to the brokenhearted; He doesn’t avoid me; He is closer to me now than ever before; He wants to talk to me; He wants to comfort me; He wants to offer hope to me and help me to maneuver this process so that I can face the future with a new hope and a joy that I have yet to find.
C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, Mere Christianity, that, “Comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort or truth – only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.” So the question is, where am I looking for my comfort? Intimacy is a warm gift from the Lord that He has given each and every one of us and He desires us to create relationships with other people that are honest, warm, caring and safe. Intimacy is not sex, it is a connection, a sense of belonging, a closeness, a nearness, a familiarity with another, but we can only achieve intimacy by spending time with someone. God has not designed us to be comforted through the intimacy of another human being, although that is often where we tend to look. God has designed me to be completely and totally intimate with Him and when I look for His truth, I will find comfort in the end. But if I look for comfort in another person, I will find an empty desire and disappointment. Intimacy is such a private and personal thing and the only place we can truly find it with our Creator. Only He alone can track with me and knows the deep secrets of my heart.
John 16:22 says, “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice and your joy, no one will take from you.” Jesus said to His disciples, his friends, his confidants and the ones He was most intimate with, that beyond this brief time of personal fellowship with them, He would be with them permanently in His Spirit. He told His disciples to “pray without ceasing.” He wanted us to think about the concept of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our heart. Our blood flows naturally throughout our body even while we are sleeping and our breath continues without ceasing; we are not even conscious of it, but it never stops. He calls us to have a continual communion and intimacy with Him and in doing so, Jesus taught that prayer will bring about supernatural truths He will continually reveal to us on a daily basis. That alone will be my comfort, my strength, my rock, my firm foundation and will keep me from falling into the abyss of brokenness, a crushed spirit, pain and sorrow.
– Melody
