Day 18 – Issue 11

Be Still Know

Psalm 147:3 NLT

“He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.”

I remember very well when the Motown Sound burst onto the music scene. One striking Motown song from 1967 was Jimmy Ruffin’s ‘What becomes of the brokenhearted’. Now, broken hearts are hard to describe. It can be the collapse of a first love – awful in the moment, yet most definitely survivable. Or again, we had redeveloped the Oratory here on the south coast and were pleased with our work, until one year later we had a moth infestation and all the carpets disintegrated as the hoover vacuumed up large tufts of wool, recently the foodstuff for moths. A large financial investment had been consumed and we had to find the cash to re-carpet three rooms, buy new curtains etc.

Yet this was hardly a tragedy – more a costly and time-consuming nuisance. Then real tragedy struck. The daughter of some friends of ours, who was a promising young dancer in the West End, was on her way to a rehearsal. The car she was in was stuck in traffic; running late, she jumped out, and as she ran across the road she was hit and killed by a bus. How do you come back from that? That is truly a heartbreak.

The psalmist says quite simply that God heals the brokenhearted, binding up their wounds. All I can say is that this is some ministry since those wounds run deep and throughout time. Yet listening to the bereaved parents some years on, now leading a charity, the Charlotte Leatherbarrow Foundation charlottefoundation.org, to identify and provide scholarships for young promising dancers from challenging circumstances, you hear a testimony of wounded grace.

It is impossible to explain logically the work of God. It is something that has to be first encountered through a meeting with Jesus and then experienced as God holds us when we enter the most heartbreaking of circumstances. Many ask the question rather glibly, ‘Who needs God today?’ My answer is simply I do, because I hurt as a result of a heartbreak.

QUESTION: Have you experienced heartbreak? Were you able to invite God to come alongside as a comforter and wound-binder?

PRAYER: Lord, when my heart fills torn apart, I am glad I have entrusted it to you. 

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright C 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc, Wheaton, Illinois 60189 USA. All rights reserved.