I was thinking about ‘heartbreak’ the other day. The term makes me think of something from school, a bit childish and I have pictures of those sweets made into heart shapes. However, I think this all fails to deal with the silent pandemic of heart break in men.
Let me list a few things here:
Personal failure or breaches in our integrity. Disappointment in ourselves, our actions. Betrayal or the work of our lives betraying others. Shame, guilt, compromise of the stuff we built into our lives that we thought defined us. Financial failure, relationship failure or unrealised dreams that slipped the net. Frustration and hurt aimed at God, and his plans and ways.
There are so many areas in our lives that can lead us men to live with a broken heart, and notice there I used the term ‘live with!’ I know so many guys, me included at times that have lived with a broken heart.
You can live with a broken leg and it will drag along with you for a while until its fixed, a mild inconvenience, noticeable but on the mend. The broken heart however sits deep, unseen and impacts our minds, actions, words, plans, passion, dreams, energy, prayer, mental health, physical drive and motivation and on and on. For so many men this has been in place for years, decades and they have adjusted the life with a broken heart.
I want to just call out one thing here in this simple blog, I think for men its essential we identify this in our lives and make an agreement to not live out our days like that.
Without any Christian platitude here, the Bible tells us that ‘He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.’ Psalms 147:3
God can do that. It’s a work that HE does. Let’s ask him to do that for us.
Photo by Nijwam Swargiary on Unsplash
