A Shattered Heart

On pain and the passing of time.

As the years go by, your heart breaks into more and more pieces, she says.

You leave a fragment of you in every place you’ve ever lived, and with every person you have loved. It just makes it more and more difficult to know where to go.

I listen to her say this and I can’t help but feel a deep pain in my soul, knowing she’s right. I will never be whole again. It was easier when all my life was the same city, my mom, dad, brother and sister, and the friends whom I met daily at school. Everything I loved was there, in one place.

Then, too quickly, life begins. You go away. You fill your heart with memories of a different place. You live a new life for a while, and you let yourself get used to it. Then things change again. You go back home. Your friends are no longer there. What used to be your whole life is now empty, and you realize it will never be like it was. Now you have two homes, which is the same as having none.

You fall in love with a woman. It ends. She keeps a piece of your heart forever, and no amount of time will give it back. You do it again, and you fail catastrophically. Another piece left in another place.

You move again, and find happiness in the people who bring light to your new life. But your family is still back home, so you have to leave again. A heart now shattered between three places, and countless people who have taken a piece of it.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but the more you live, the more difficult it becomes to find your home.Your heart tugs in a hundred different directions, and every choice you make feels temporary. Whereas before you only knew one way of life, one place to call home, now you have too many options, and are paralyzed by them.

It’s painful to know no matter what you choose, you’ll have to leave some people behind. What seemed permanent while you lived it might become a blurred memory of a time that doesn’t even appear real. The people with whom you shared so much will become nothing but strangers, random souls you will never meet again.

It’s painful to know that the past, however beautiful it was, will never be again, and all you have is uncertainty, forever. All you can do is hang on to faith, and trust and pray God will lead you to where you must go.

If you let your heart long too strongly for the things of this world, however meaningful they might be, you’ll fail to put the pieces back together. If you try to hold on to people, places, memories, jobs, experiences, or things, you will suffer more than you need to. The glue that can put your heart back together isn’t found in the things of this world.

There’s only one way to make your heart whole again, and that is by letting the light of Christ fill the holes in your fragmented heart. We ought to remember that our souls are not made for this world and everything that happens here serves the purpose of introducing us to our Savior and prepare us for the next life.

Your heart will inevitably break a million times in the years that you walk the earth. Only Jesus can give you a new one, one in which the pieces serve a purpose, and the pain is replaced by a silent understanding that this is the way it’s supposed to be: to passionately surrender a piece of you to all the people you have loved. To let it be broken so God can put it back together.

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I know this was different from my usual work, as I tend to try and keep my articles practical and applicable. Every once in a while, however, I like to write more freely. More soul and less intellect, you could say. That’s where I find the most enjoyment and that’s when I believe I produce my finest work.

Let me know if you like this kind of articles in the comment section!

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