Lord, we seek the moving of your word as spoken in our bible so please accept my words as my interpretation so we can see new vision as we go on our travel of life. Amen.
My chosen Psalms for this series were actually chosen almost 30 years ago when I preached at MCC North London on when the emotional pain inflicted on us by others can be greater than the physical wounds we experience.
I have always stored my drafts for sermons going back almost 30 years and in my distant memory, I knew I had prepared a similar sermon at the time of the AIDS crisis. It was to be a sermon of hope, something we all lacked at a time of so much fear and uncertainty, a time when we had to share the real meaning of loving each other. A time when we realized how frail we were and needed to see how God in our lives helped mend hearts and bodies.
Psalm 126 verse 5 promises Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. This is God saying he will heal all broken hearts. We will no longer feel sad for what we lacked in this physical life because God will fill our hearts and make us complete.
A popular song of the 70’s was one by the Bee Gees and the words went….
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win? Please help me mend my broken heart. And let me live again.
Do you have a broken heart now or had your heart broken in the past? Many of us know what it means to have a gaping hole in our
hearts left by someone or some set of circumstances. We wondered whether this hole could ever be filled or if we’d be left forever with that feeling of emptiness.
There can be many reasons why we are left with a broken heart…the death of a loved one, separation from a partner, loss of a job, loss of health, betrayal by a friend and yes even loss of your childhood. Any of these can leave us a broken man or woman.
Like many others, I have experienced the good things of living but also experienced great sorrow and among those has been the loss of my childhood. Being the eldest of 13, six brothers six sisters I took on the responsibilities of an adult very early
Now today which we all probably are aware of is Father’s Day I recall how my father was very dictatorial and I never heard him say “I love you” or I am proud of you.
My earliest memory of any closeness was 1945 when he returned from fighting in Burma and picked me up at our front door and the only other time is me sitting on his shoulders looking out over 7ft snowdrifts in 1947. It all went downhill from then on.
I had to stand hard on my own two feet very early as I never felt a strong father in my life protecting me and making me feel safe and secure.
This reality has left a hole in my heart…an emptiness that I once felt could never be filled. This hurt is not outside of us. It is inside and I know how in my case, the attempt to push it away can actually push it deeper. We then spend the rest of our lives running from this suppressed damage. The result in my case was when my father died I had no feelings for him and did not even attend his funeral.
By suffering through our hurts, we are part of this human race…millions of people going through similar pain.
It is during this time that we need a lot of love.
I can tell you there is hope for all those damaged hearts because another Psalm…psalm 147 verse 3 also tells us.. God heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds. God wants to heal us of all of our wounds.
So how can we put ourselves together again?
Times like these are when we should reflect on the purpose and meaning of life. This is the greatest opportunity to help us draw closer to God. It also provides an opportunity to learn empathy towards others who are going through the same, however, you cannot do anything if you try to ignore your own pain.
Look to God as your healer. Just as you would tell a doctor your symptoms, tell God how much you have been wounded and need His healing touch. He will hear all your cries because he wants to reach down, take your hand and walk you through your pain. It may take weeks, maybe months and for many of us perhaps a lifetime , to close the wounds of our hearts completely. God will spend as much time and as many years as necessary to help you through it. God wants to apply the daily “ointment” of the Holy Spirit to us until we are healed.
When we are down God lifts me up in many different ways. He is there for me to cry on His shoulder to speak and sends His encouraging Spirit to get me back up and going again.
Another Psalm No 56 verse 8 Here King David said…
“You number my wanderings; put my tears into your bottle. Are they not in Your Book?”
God was so aware of David that He figuratively collected his tears and David who was a man who faced many trials and heartaches again wrote in Psalm 34 verse 18
“ The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Ask and receive God’s love and encouragement because He is very near to you.
As God has reached out to us so we should be instruments of God to reach out and help others who are in pain. By doing so our own pain will begin to disappear. The hole in our hearts will begin to close.
The early 80’s and nineties were a very difficult time for many of us in the Metropolitan Community Churches all over the world. But we came through it by sharing our pain
It takes time to heal. In my life, I still have a hole in my heart after all my years but its much smaller now because of God. Every time I feel His presence (like when I am writing this serman), Every time I see His intervention in my life, every time I reach out to someone else, every time He grants me blessings, the hole in my heart gets smaller.
Isaiah 61 verses 1-3
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
Let us ask God to use us to encourage others through our pain, because by doing so we will understand and help in a far greater way.
Amen
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