How to Get Through When Your Heart Hurts

This is another one of those prophetic blog posts. I wrote this just hours before finding out that the one thing that's kept me holding my breath had come to pass. I am absolutely crushed, but I know I'll be alright. One day at a time...

I cross off the days on the calendar. One by one. I can't believe it's been almost a year since the darkest season. I can't believe it's been almost two since it all began.

I wish I could say it gets easier. I've heard time and time again that in time things get easier. What they don't tell you is that it's only easier because you learn to live with the pain of your broken heart. It's only easier because you find out how to get out of bed every morning when you spent all night tossing and turning from nightmares. Easier happens because you find hope in something else. Because you see that there is still so much goodness amidst all the broken. That's how it gets easier. But it certainly is not easier because you suddenly don't care (though Lord knows how many times I've pleaded that prayer). It doesn't help that in the back of your mind you have a constant reminder of what is was, how it happened, how you wish it had just been different. The reminders will keep popping up. In other ways. In conversations with people who don't realize the weight their words carry. You're always holding your breath waiting for someone to speak the words so nonchalantly that you've been crippled in fear to hear.

How have I gotten through? One day at a time. If that doesn't work I break it down into time blocks. "If I can just get through the work day", "if I can just make it through the night", "if I can just get through this next hour", "if I can just get through this minute". I get through relying heavily on the Lord to carry me. There are days that I try to muster up all the strength I can just to persevere. But there are other days I'm just broken in tears and I just ask the Lord to help me get through. One step at a time. Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase. Faith is taking the first step even though you don't think you can even make it halfway through the race, never mind finish. Faith is beautiful and delicate but it's also brave and strong. Faith changes everything.

When I started to put my trust in God, like really, really, put my trust in God, then it was easier. Again, not because it was any less hard, but because God is that much more strong. His word says "Cast your cares upon Him, for He cares about you" and "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." I always heard that and thought I understood, but it was really that I understood that giving my cares to God would lighten the load. But I didn't realize how until I learned what a yoke was. "A yoke is a wooden crosspiece that is fastened over the necks of two animals and attached to the plow or cart that they are to pull." A yoke is the device that allows two animals to pull something heavy together.

Here's the thing. That heavy thing we're pulling around? It doesn't get any less heavy when we give it to Jesus. It still weighs the same thing. But Jesus takes the full weight of it and pulls both His weight and ours together. We're still pulling with Jesus, but He's got the bulk of it. Realizing the weight doesn't change, it just shifts somehow made it easier to give to Jesus. Like I wasn't casting off my care or saying that heavy thing suddenly isn't such a hard thing to carry, it's still as important.

When I understood that, that's when it started to make more sense. It doesn't get any easier just because I gave my cares to Jesus- but it does become more bearable because I gave my cares to Jesus. The situation still needs me to pull through. I can't be cut loose from this yoke to run free - it's not the time. No, the time is to let myself be linked to Jesus and to walk in sync with Him. The deeper weight of all of this is knowing that Jesus is carrying for me what I cannot carry myself. That I have literally given Him what was too much for me and now He's pulling both of us so that I can just get through.

So that's how I cross off the days on the calendar. One day at a time. Having faith and trusting that God is leading me to a good and loving place even though I can't see it now. One step at a time. Trusting He won't lead me astray. And by casting off the weight from my shoulders onto His and humbly realizing the reality of my weakness to get through this alone. No time doesn't make it easier. You just learn to change what doesn't work into something that does. You adjust your focus onto the only One who will never leave you and you face another day.