The Lord is Close to the Brokenhearted

"We're sorry, but I don't think she's going to make it."

The words stabbed through my heart, and I felt the weight of them crush me like a ton of bricks. Was I even hearing her correctly? Maybe I was just seeing things. Or I could be dreaming. Yes, dreaming would be nice. Then I can just wake up and forget...

"Come on Anna, let's go visit her."

As my dad pulled me into the hospital room where my little sister was waiting, every step felt so hard to take. Every breath felt close to impossible. But still, I was alive. Alive in the very physical sense of the world. But as I sat there in the room with my little sister, being forced to say goodbye, everything felt impossible. In a sense it was like my world had fallen apart. She was my world. And now my world was over. 

Most everyone has experienced the feeling of being brokenhearted. Like Anna in the story, you easily could have had a situation in your past where everything just felt impossible. Breathing may seem labored and hard to manage. You might feel a constant pain or heaviness in your chest. Maybe even doing the simplest things are just hard to manage or even close to impossible anymore. I think everyone experiences the feeling of brokeness or brokenheartedness at some point in their lives. But do we really know how to respond when we feel this way? Most of us, when we get to this point, we have no clue where to turn! I've been there, and sometimes over things that are a lot less big than Anna's situation above. 

If you ask around and try talking to others on their opinion on how to handle this feeling, expecially as teenagers, most of them will say things like this.

~ "Oh, you're just a teenager. It's normal to be emotional. The feeling will pass."

~ "Why don't you try finding things to engage in to take your mind off of how your feeling?"

~ "Well, ya know, time heals everything. Just wait awhile and things will get better."

Now don't get me wrong. Teenagers can and will be emotional sometimes. It can be a really good thing to find something else to do if you are feeling overwhelmed in your emotions. And for most things, time does heal things. But sometimes, these answers just aren't good enough. We want something more. Something to grab on to. Something that will encourage and inspire us. Something to give us hope when all seems lost. Well good news for us, God has given us the answer in the Bible. But firstly, we need to realize that not only does God have everything under control, but he is actually close to us! Look at what this Bible verse states in Psalms.

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted 

    and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalms 34:18 

What good news this is for us to hear. To know that even when we feel this way and even when we feel this broken, God has never left us and he actually is close to us instead. This is also worded in another way here. 

 "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 2 Corinthians 12:9

So in knowing that God is close to us when we feel broken, we need to run to Him when we feel this way. He is the only one who truly can understand the depth of the pain we feel or the weight in our chest. He understands the situation and knows every little part of it. The Bible says that he knows exactly how many hairs we have on our head!(Luke 12:17) God not only knows the problem and its extent but because he loves us so much, he wants us to take our problems and worries to Him. He doesn't want us to have to deal with our problems alone and actually tells us to give our worries, cares, and all of our problems over to Him so we don't have to carry them ourselves! He says that when we go to Him with our problems and give them over to Him, he will give us his peace.

"Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 5:1

So today I just want to encourage you girls. Sometimes we feel brokenhearted. We just feel hurt and crushed and the things of life get us down. But girls, we don't have to deal with this alone! God is right here with us through everything we are going through. Every step of the way. And when we feel like we can't take another step, God is right there to tell us that we can, that we can heal, and we can get better. Remember that all things are possible through God(Matthew 19:26). When we feel this way, at any time in our lives, we need to run to God. He will help us and will give us the strength we need to acomplish anything!(Exodus 15:2)

I found this song the other day called "Hanging On" by Britt Nicole. This song is amazing because in a way, it's a cry out to God. At the end of the song she's saying that she's hanging on because she knows God will take care of her. A beautiful song to listen to for any occasion! I have posted the video below, so feel free to check it out and let us know what you think! 

Girls, if any of you have been feeling Brokenhearted recently, it is our prayer that this post was an encouragment to you! If you need someone to talk to, prayer, or support, please don't hesitate to email us at heistodiefor@gmail.com and we will get back to you shortly! God Bless! <3

~Angelica

Through the Pain, To the Healing

A lot of times, you'll hear someone say that they just want to heal from a bad experience and move on with their life. This would make sense, as it would be kind of silly to think that you wouldn't want to heal from something. Why would you want to continue to hold all that pain close to you like that? Well unfortunately, there is something that can keep everyone from healing. Most of the time, it keeps a lot of people from even beginning the healing process. This thing is called pain. 

People don't like pain. In fact, most people try to live their lives in such a way that they don't have to encounter pain. Why? Because as humans, we don't like getting hurt. But most of the time, if not all of the time, we have to go through the pain in order to reach that state of healing. If we never go through the pain, we will never get to the heart of the problem and allow ourselves to heal. Let me tell you a story. 

When I was a young girl, my birth mom decided that she no longer wanted to be a part of my life and left me in the hands of my birth dad. My birth dad struggled to take care of me the best he could for a little while, until he eventually decided to give me over to the hands of my wonderful parents now, and at the age of 4 1/2, they adopted me. Though many things happened in between, once I learned that I was adopted around the age of 12, I really struggled. I had lots of questions and felt rejected and upset a lot of time. Unfortunately, this lead into me acting out. I felt so hurt and rejected that I was being very rude and disrespectful to my loving parents. This continued for years until I recently had the opportunity to visit my birth dad in Nebraska over the summer. Always being a Momma's girl and being rather clingy, I wasn't thrilled at the idea of leaving home to spend time in another state for any amount of time. I really struggled in those upcoming weeks before heading to Nebraska. I had never talked about being adopted with my birth dad and I wasn't planning on talking to him if and when I did decide to head there. But that was the thing, I didn't realize it then, but once I went there and went through the pain, I was going to come back a much better person, and would be healed from a lot of my past wounds. But at the time, I didn't want any part of this thing called "Healing" if it would be painful.

Lucky for me, I didn't really have a choice in the matter. My parents knew it would be best for me to go anyway, and off I went to Nebraska to spend a week there. To be honest, it wasn't easy. But it was good for a few reasons. Firstly, it made me put my trust in God because I was too scared and too out of my element to do anything else. One of the things I was worried about was not having very good cell phone reception. Funny enough, I didn't have very good reception. God's way of saying, "Hey, I'm right here. Come to me, I'm with you." God has a funny way of working sometimes. And ya know, I did get a lot closer to God because of my time in Nebraska. Sometimes my stubbornness can get in the way of what I know is the right option, which in this case, was going to God. It was also good for me because while I was there, I was able to have a heart to heart talk with my birth dad about being adopted. A conversation I had been dreading having for years, ended up being a conversation I am going to remember for the rest of my life. It put a lot of things into perspective and allowed for me to see that God's hand was really in everything. My beginnings, everything that happened early on in my life, and everything going on in my life now. He's simply, always there. 

When I came back from my trip to Nebraska, there was a lot of healing that had taken place. I started seeing everyone else in my family differently because instead of being worried sick they were going to hurt me or leave all the time, I realized that they were all my family who were going to love and support me regardless of what I was going through. From then on out, I have been able to continue to heal my relationships with them. 

So that's the thing. As humans, we don't like pain. Most of us run from the idea of something being painful or unpleasant. But sometimes, we have to go through the pain and through that tough time in order to reach that state of healing. Luckily though, we are not asked to go through it alone. Jesus says that he will never leave us, so we need to remember that he is going to be there regardless of what we may be going through. 

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9

So I just wanted to take the time to encourage you girls today. Sometimes we have to go through things that are going to be hard and unpleasant. But instead of being afraid of those times and wanting to run away from them, we should turn to God instead. He understands our fear and knows that some things might not be so easy. But he also says that he will give us his strength. 

"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." Isaiah 40:29

So girls, stay encouraged. God never promised that as followers of Him we would be free from pain and suffering. Not at all. But instead, he promised us something even bigger than that. He promised us eternal life to everyone that repents, He promised to never leave, and He promised that He would always take care of us. For me, I'd much rather have some pain and suffering if it meant having an all knowing, all loving God who is always on my side, looking out for me. 

~ Angelica

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