Hearts healed

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
Psalm 147:3

This verse has been coming to my mind quite often lately. These words were used to comfort my son, as well as my six and eight-year-old nephews last week when they were saying their last good-byes to their great-grandma, or "GG". I reminded them that God keeps His promises, and GG will be in Heaven, and that God promises to heal our broken hearts - so even though we feel very sad right now, we won't feel this sad forever. God will heal our broken hearts.

God used the verse to comfort me as I was facing a different trial last week. I was feeling trapped in my discouragement, but God reminded me that He will bind me up, and that I had no reason to feel hopeless.

Last night, God put this verse in my mind as I was able to encourage a friend who was surprised when a hurt from her past came back in her face. If God can heal our broken hearts and bind our wounds, than He can heal all wounds -- even old scars that get scratched and irritated.

The key to receiving this healing is letting Him heal it. It is kind of like when Joey gets a splinter and the dreaded tweezers come out. He fights and fights against me, and the splinter remains. It continues to hurt. When he finally lets me pull it out, it feels better, and the pain is gone.

One of the reasons I love this verse so much is because God used it in a significant way when I was grieving the death of Natalie. I was hurting so badly. The grief was surprising, and terrible, and my heart was broken. I wanted healing. I wanted to feel better. I wanted the horrible pain to just go away.

I would get frustrated when Adam couldn't take the pain away. I would read books about stillbirth, but my pain remained. I would talk about her, talk about the grief, and I still was wounded, and I couldn't fix it. One evening, I read this verse, and the message was so clear, it was almost like the page was speaking. I realized that only God would heal my broken heart. Only God could bind up my wounds, and only God is able take my pain away. I understood that night that I had to trust God to take my pain away, and have faith that he would keep His promise and bind up all the wounds of grief in my life.

A friend stopped in later that night, and she probably thought I was crazy as I excitedly told her about this verse, and how I knew that only God would heal me. It seems so obvious, but I needed to claim His healing for myself. It was like I had found a secret cure, and was telling her all about it.

In reality, the cure was always there. God wants us to heal. He wants to bind us up, but we have to let Him.

God did heal my broken heart. The loss of Natalie was so sad. God was faithful, and replaced the sadness with hope and the joy of new life when my son and daughter were born, alive and healthy. There is a scar, and from time to time my heart does heart, but God is so good to me. He loves me and cares for me, and tends to my pain when it resurfaces. What is beautiful is that all the praise and glory goes to Him.

He is the healer of my heart.

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
Psalm 147:3