The Heartbreak of God

I wrote this short poem on a whim over the summer, when a thought came to my mind on an evening drive. I’ve honestly been “sitting” on this blog post for a couple of months now, occasionally coming back to it, editing and deleting, but never quite feeling like it told the story I wanted it to tell. I had written a couple of paragraphs about God’s unconditional love with references to Scripture to preface this poem, but I felt God pulling my heart in a different direction.

September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month — it’s estimated that about 800,000 people die each year from suicide, which equates to one person every 40 seconds. My heart hurts thinking about the reality of this statistic, knowing that millions more battle different mental conditions and illnesses.

I’ve felt alone and abandoned by God more than a few times in my own struggles with mental health. Unseen. Unloved. Forgotten. Why am I still struggling with this? Where is God? Why haven’t I been healed? What did I do wrong?

I think a lot of us hear that God loves us unconditionally, and HE DOES. But sometimes we miss the less common narrative that goes along with His unconditional love, and it’s this: God’s heart breaks when our hearts break — He hurts when we hurt. That loss? He felt it with you, His heart ached right along with yours. Those days where you felt like you couldn’t get out of bed? He saw every moment, and He longed for you, His child, to feel some sort of hope for even a split second. And those days where life felt like too much to bear? He felt the weight you were carrying and His heart broke for you.

Maybe you’ve struggled with mental illness for years or decades, and maybe you’ve asked every question possible and you can’t quite figure out why you still suffer. Maybe the thing that hurts you most isn’t mental illness — perhaps it’s a traumatic event, a physical disease, or something in the past that won’t seem to loosen its grip on your life.

I don’t have the answers, and I doubt I ever will — but my prayer is that this short piece will touch even the smallest part of your heart.

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My eyes were glued

On a world

That appeared to be falling apart

At its seams.

Tears stained my eyes

Knowing the pain

That my fellow humans

Faced and felt.

A pain that I could feel

But could never fully understand.

I asked You

To break my heart for what breaks Yours

And my heart broke.

I felt a whisper

A quiet voice.

“Don’t you know

That my heart breaks

When you hurt, too?

My child,

Don’t you know

That my love is for them

And it is for you, too?”

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-J.E.H.