Have you ever been brokenhearted? I was sitting with a friend the other day who’s son died last year after complications from an open heart surgery. He was only nine years old. Another mother called me recently and told me that her grown son is hooked on crystal meth again and doesn’t know what to do anymore to help him except pray. Another friend of mine told me of how his family is suffering from sexual abuse that has taken place with his daughter and possibly his son. Over and over again I see one person from the next who is brokenhearted. Various situations and circumstances in life keep breaking people’s hearts and if only I could stop them I would. But I can’t. I can’t because I’m not God nor can I fix a brokenhearted world.
This world is brokenhearted because of sin. This may sound cliche, but no matter how cliche it may sound, sin abounds. But we mustn’t forget that God’s grace abounds all the more! This is what Psalm 147:3 is all about. While it may appear that sin is abounding and there is no fixing the brokenhearted, we read that it is God who heals the brokenhearted. This is grace beyond compare. When someone faces the death of a loved one, has a wayward son or daughter, is going through a divorce or separation, being involved in the lives of others who are falling apart, or simply just being brokenhearted due to life, God is there is heal.
God heals through the suffering. This sounds strange, but it causes us to reach out to Him when brokenness becomes part of our life. When we reach out to Him through prayer, God promises to hear our prayers. First John 5:14, 15 says:
And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.
Hebrews 4:16 says that we can come to Him boldly:
Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
When we are brokenhearted, we need to receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need and God’s word says that we can with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.
Much suffering comes from the one who is crushed in spirit. Perhaps there has been one failure after another. God heals through our failures. Psalm 34:18 says:
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Failures are a part of life. They happen because we are fallen creatures due to our sin. We do the things that we don’t want to do and we don’t do the things that we want to do. It is inevitable that we will fail at times due to our sin. And when we sin the guilt of our sin (we are guilty as sinners) we feel the shame of our sin. When we feel this way, know that God says in Ezekiel 34:16:
I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them justice.
At the moment of my straying due to my sin, although my sin causes me to be brokenhearted, God seeks to bring me back to Him and he binds up my injuries because of sin.
God heals the brokenhearted by those who bring good news. Isaiah 61:1-3 says:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion–to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that He may be glorified.
Those who bring good news to the brokenhearted can and do help bring healing. The good news that they bring is that God is with them in their brokenness. God is there to help free them from the encumbrances that so easily entangle them in sin. God is there to open prison doors when the brokenhearted feels as if there is no more hope left. He comforts those who are mourning and crowns them with beauty, gladness instead of mourning, praise instead of a faint heart. He plants them and helps them to be as strong as the mighty oaks so that the brokenhearted might be healed, so that their wounds might be bandaged so they can then in turn glorify Him as Lord of lords and King of kings!
So, do you have a broken heart today? Rest assured, God is faithful to heal the brokenhearted. Are you wounded by someone or something? Rest assured, God is faithful to bring mercy and grace in our most desperate time of need and we can approach Him with confidence seeking to receive His mercy and grace.
D.J. Gorena 
