When you’re hurting, you can feel so alone. You’re alone with your thoughts that are often not healthy ones.  You don’t know who to talk to, you don’t want to burden anyone with the pain in your heart.  You pray but you don’t stop hurting and you want the dull ache inside of you to simply vanish; but it doesn’t.  It stays way too long, and you can’t escape it.  They say time heals all things but it’s totally dependent on what you do during that time, otherwise you just go numb, and you never really feel better.  You feel hopeless, and some days are dark.  Really dark.

As a believer in Jesus, I KNOW that this can never be the end of the story.  I know I’m not alone.  I know that my prayers are not ‘ricocheting off the ceiling’, and I know that there is hope.  We don’t always feel it, but a life based on feelings is dangerous.  We need to build our lives on the Truth, the Rock, on Jesus.  He doesn’t change like our emotions do and He is as steady as you need Him to be.  Remember that here at 1Africa, we are not in the business of white-washing over real issues.  But we are definitely in the business of Hope.

Psalm 34 is the one to read if you feel like I’ve just described.  Verses 17 and 18 say this:

The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help.  He rescues them from all their troubles.  The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;  he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

God doesn’t pay us lip service.  Real Love doesn’t do that.  He really cares, despite what your circumstances might suggest, or what a hurt person might confess.  God’s heart is for you, to see you always have hope and not just an empty promise, but action.  He ensures that at the right time, there is healing.

I saw reference once to the Japanese art of Kintsukuroi, where a craftsman will repair a cracked or broken piece of pottery with resin that has been mixed with powdered gold , silver or platinum.  The philosophy speaks to the understanding that the piece is now more beautiful for being broken.

God does this with us, doesn’t He?  We are all broken to a certain degree, and that is where God meets us, but He is not and will never be content to leave us that way.  He is all about redeeming us; from our sin firstly, and also to redeem us from our other brokenness.  Draw close to God and allow Him to fulfill His promise to draw near to you (James 4:8) and let Him complete the work He has started; that despite what you’ve been through that He will heal and restore you. (Psalm 147:3)

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