When you're really sad or something has really hurt you, we call that a broken heart. The image that's always been conjured for me in the idea of a "broken" heart is one of being shattered or smashed. When thinking about a "broken" heart, the metaphors I draw are to dishes or windows - things that are whole and then are shattered. When those things are broken, it takes a very long time to fix them, if you even can. You don't ever want them to be broken - their brokenness is always a negative thing. Nothing about the purpose of a plate or a window is better served by being broken. You don't ever want to break these things, you want to protect them from brokenness, because if they are broken, it is always negative because those things are now far less useful and far less valuable. That's the image I get of a broken heart. It's always a bad thing, it messes things up, it makes you less useful and less valuable, it is something to be fixed and undone. All of this is just like broken dishes. That's my metaphor.
But I thought recently - what is that's the wrong metaphor? There are other things, not at all like dishes, that have to be broken in order to ever be useful. Their purpose is to be broken and it's actually a desirable thing. I know there are more, but the only thing I can think of right now is a walnut. A walnut is just fine if it remains intact. It is kinda pretty, might look good in a nice harvest-themed decoration of some sort. It's fine. But a walnut's real purpose is to either A. be a seed and grow a new tree, or B. be eaten. And this walnut can never be purposeful, it can't accomplish either one of these purposes, if it isn't broken. It has to be broken open if it is ever going to have any potential and if it doesn't it is always just a walnut that was more comfortable but that didn't ever really do anything and then it rots and that's the end. Because see, sometimes, broken doesn't mean shattered. Sometimes broken means opened. And for things where "broken" means, broken open, that breaking open is usually totally necessary for the successful function of that thing.
My thought it - maybe our hearts are a lot more like the walnut than they are like the plate. We fear brokenheartedness - I know I do - and I think we worry that it's a terribly negative thing to be protected against and avoided, because it "ruins" our heart, at least for a time, and makes our heart far less useful and we need to fix this situation as quick as we can. That's the fear. But what if our hearts, in brokenness, are actually broken open? What is brokenheartedness is actually our time of greatest potential usefulness and value? That doesn't make it hurt less - being cracked open but a nutcracker isn't pleasant for the walnut, no sir - but not all things that hurt us are bad (I'm thinking, shots, grad school, some breakups, dissertations) and not all things that are bad, immediately hurt us (I'm thinking, cocaine.) There's a reason why being made into the image of God is called the refiner's FIRE. We are freaking burned and melted before we're any better. When a refiner refines gold, he melts it until the impurities float to the top and then he scrapes those off and repeats that process over and over until the gold is really pure. The way he can see that it is really good and pure is that he can see His face reflected in it. Awesome metaphor, right? This gold has to be burned and melted (broken, in it's own way) before it is any good. We as a culture (maybe just as people, who knows) have done ourselves a great disservice and we have liked hurtfulness and badness inextricably together. That's why we get people doing terribly unwise things and justifying with a "something that feels this right can't be wrong." that improper linking, in my opinion, has caused us to naturally make brokenheartedness a negative thing.
But as I said, maybe we aren't shattered. Maybe we are broken open like the walnut. Maybe brokenness is an enviable time of vulnerability, of a little less guardedness, of really being able to identify with someone else's pain, of openness and empathy to others, of openness and malleability to God.
I know when I was brokenhearted over Michael, I was the saddest I'd ever been but I was also talking to God more than I ever had and I was, more than ever, acutely aware of the fact that if I got ANYTHING done, He had helped me. I was depressed, and so if I had been left on my own, I would not have gotten up, or showered, or gone to class, or eaten. But I did do all those things, and I prayed for the strength to do every one of them, and I was very aware that I hadn't done them by myself, because I couldn't have. The image I had of myself was one of a little child in her dad's lap, face buried in his arms, crying and crying over what has hurt her. Is the dad sad that she's hurting? No. But is he happy that something occurred that caused her to put down her toys and frivolous business and simple little luxuries and sit so close to him in his lap for a while and beg for his help? No, I don't think he's too sorry over that. If she were happy and strong and seemingly self-sufficient, she would be off somewhere, doing something else, farther from him. I remember saying one time that I had never been closer to God or more aware and thankful for how much He takes care of me than I was during this time, and that, even though I was so sad, I would do it all again if that's what it took for that time of closeness with Him.
Maybe brokenheartedness is a thing to be accepted, even desired. Maybe it is a time to be treasured. Maybe we are broken open, instead of shattered.
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