May Our Hearts Always Be Broken

I love to read—always have. When I’m reading I become part of the story. As a child, I can remember being called to dinner and worrying I would miss something in whatever book I was reading. 

I am also a sensitive person. I have been described as an empath, and if empath is defined as “a person who actually senses and feels emotions as if they’re part of the person’s own experience” then it’s probably accurate. And it extends into reading. If a book I’m reading is sad, if a character is struggling, I often take on that mood and it invades the rest of my life. (Which is a very good reason to sometimes just read something that’s jovial and light…)

This past weekend I read This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger. In the book one of the main characters, Odie, is struggling with his relationship with God, struggling with the nature of God—is God a kind and loving and merciful God or Tornado God who leaves death and destruction wherever God goes? I spent the whole novel wanting to convince Odie that God is a God of love and faithfulness. I wanted to hug him and let him feel God's love through my arms. I ached for the pain Odie was experiencing and how again and again he was let down.

At one point Odie says, “Once again we were grieving loss. It was a feeling that should have been familiar to us by then, but does anyone ever get used to having their heart broken?” (p.256). I have not been able to get away from this question and the answer which I think more times than not is a resounding no. 

I think about broken relationships—relationships where one or the other believes “this time it will be different” and the betrayal, loss, and pain happens yet again. I think of addiction and relapse—does anyone ever get over watching themselves or another suffer? I think of mental illness, divorce, death—does anyone’s heart ever harden enough for it to no longer hurt?

This week I am particularly thinking of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters and the statement that came from the Vatican that priests cannot bless same sex unions because “God cannot bless sin.” My heart hurts not only for those in the Roman Catholic faith who hurt and hurt deeply, but also for every single person who once again has to read a headline or hear a news story where their belovedness, their goodness, their dignity, their humanness, their worth is debated. I feel a sadness that sinks deep into my bones, and I cannot fathom how those in the LGBTQ community feel.

But I can answer Odie’s question about whether anyone ever gets used to having your heart broken. I hope not. I hope the world’s heart continues to break over and over as we stand with those who are treated as less than whether because of addiction, mental health, race, gender, sexuality, or anything else. I hope our hearts never harden enough to not see and feel the pain. I hope our hearts break wide open and the love of God comes spilling out into the universe. And I pray our broken hearts lead us to action and eventually to healing and wholeness. I pray our hearts continue to break.

Until one day no hearts are broken because the world knows God is love--love for all no exceptions. Until one day the world knows, believes, and lives into the reality that we are all one.