Posts
Heartbreak
Happens
By Susanne
Scheppmann
Key Verse:
A
time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. Ecclesiastes 3:4 (NIV)
Devotion:
The
privilege to see her develop from a darling “Gerber” baby to an adorable
four-year-old were the best years of my life.
Every time I picked her up from preschool her eyes would light up. She’d jump up laughing into my arms and
shout, “Grandma!” I never took those moments
for granted. I knew heartbreak happens.
Her
brother, Michael, was my little buddy. I
watched him grow from a baby bouncing on my knee, to a scampering toddler, to a
young man that I picked up from school each day. I treasured him as no other little boy. He was beat of my heart. The joy in my smile.
And
then one day, Michael and Mikayla were gone.
Heartbreak happened.
On
June 16, 2016, my son and daughter-in-law informed me that they were moving
two-thousand miles away. My heart
collapsed. I could not stop crying. My weeping kept my husband awake at night for
months. My hair fell out by the
fistfuls. My thoughts blurred between a
disarray of depression and anger. It was
my time to weep and mourn.
Despair
filled my soul. Well-meaning people
would say, “God will never give you more than you can handle.” Let me set the record straight right
now. Nowhere in the Bible does it say he
will not give us more than we can handle.
The following verse is misquoted most of the time to the detriment of
those who are broken-hearted. Let’s look
closely at what 1 Corinthians 10:13 actually says.
No temptation has seized
you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what
you can bear. But when you are tempted,
he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13 (NIV) {Emphasis mine.}
The verse actually states that God will not allow us to be
tempted beyond what we can bear, not that we will not have heartbreak beyond
what we can handle. Let’s delve into
Scripture future and see what else the Apostle Paul writes about not being able
to endure.
We
do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in
the province of Asia. We were under
great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired
even of life. Indeed, in our hearts
we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on
ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (NIV) {Emphasis mine.}
Losing
my grandson and granddaughter was more than I could bear. People would say it could be worse. “There could have been a horrific are
accident,” or “They could be moving to Africa as missionaries.” Or the diagnosis could have been
“cancer”. I thank God it was none of those, but in the
reality of my emotional heart a death had taken place. My heart was shattered into a million pieces
that Christian platitudes were not going to glue back together.
Let’s
investigate what happens when your heart is broken.
· Your brain thinks you’re
physically hurt and respond accordingly. (Fight or flight.) I choose flight.
· You get fat or
thin. (Of course, I always choose fat.)
· You’re swimming in
stress hormones. Your brain pumps
cortisol and epinephrine into your blood stream reacting with the fight or
flight response.
· You’ll be depressed.
· You’ll wonder who you
are. Erica Slotter a Ph. D. candidate
from Northwestern University states, “We know that relationships change the way
see think about ourselves. When a relationship
seemingly ends, that sense of self ends.” I just wanted to be a grandma.
· You’ll want to be
alone. Yup, pretty much. My friend, Heidi, said, “You are on the run
from the reality of your life.” Duh!
Heartbreak
does not end. It lasts. Now after many long dark months I still grieve
the loss of Michael and Mikayla, but I do not grieve without the comfort of our
God. He has swaddled me in his tender
arms. He has sung sweet lullabies while
I wept. My comfort comes from His
Word. Search the Psalms to find his love
song to you.
Heartbreak
happens. Christ consoles.
Prayer:
Lord
Jesus, come to us that are heartbroken by life. Life is hard. You know that because you walked this earth
in a frail body of emotions too. You understand, even when we do not. Come and
console us.
Power verses:
May
your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant. Psalm 119:76 (NIV)
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so
that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have
received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our
lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 2 Corinthians 1:3-6 (NIV)
As
a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted
over Jerusalem." Isaiah 66:13 (NIV
© 2017 by Susanne Scheppmann. All rights reserved.
GREAT
QUOTES ON HEARTBREAK
“Never allow
someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.” Mark Twain
“Perhaps this is
what the stories meant when they called somebody heartsick. Your heart and your
stomach and your whole insides felt empty and hollow and aching.”
“I know my heart
will never be the same
But I'm telling
myself I'll be okay.” Sara Evans
“Stab the body and
it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”
“Deep grief
sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time.
When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you
could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that
they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes
this will bring hope”
“Listen to God with
a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it, but also the father who
wipes away the tears.”
“I was in the
biggest breakdown of my life when I stopped crying long enough to let the words
of my epiphany really sink in. That whore, karma, had finally made her way
around, and had just bitch-slapped me right across the face. The realization
only made me cry harder.” ― Unknown
“When you're
missing a piece of yourself, aching, gut wrenching emptiness begins to take
over. Until you find the link that completes your very soul, the feeling will
never go away. Most people find a way to fill this void, material possessions,
a string of relationships, affairs, food...I bare my soul, with words, for all
to see.”
“Most things break,
including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to
wisdom, but to scar
tissue and callus.” -- Wallace Stegner
When you lose
someone, you get used to living day to day without them. But you’ll never get
used to the “10 second heartbreak.” That’s the time it takes to wake to full
consciousness each day and remember…”
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Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Galatians 6:7 (NIV)
Or as our
world would say it’s Karma…what goes around comes around.
“Sooner or later in
life, we will all take our own turn being in the position we once had someone
else in.”
“But, mark my
words; someday she'll get what's coming to her. Karma's a bigger bitch than she
is.”
“If karma doesn't
catch up, God will surely pick up the slack.”
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