How can I recover from heartbreak / a broken heart?

But however sure and certain that the separation is only for "a little while," and that good is the will of the Lord, the poor human heart is bowed down beneath the weight of a sorrow that has cast its dark shade over everything around, and deepens by the tender recollections of a thousand associations day by day. It is not unbelief, it is not murmuring, it is the agony of a bereaved affection. Oh, mysterious agony! Thy voice is groans and sighs; thy repast is tears, yet we would not be withdrawn from thee, we love to feed upon thee, we love to dwell with thee alone. It changes everything here below, but more to some than to others. The paths of the wilderness may be dark and lonely, the poor body may be feeble, the spirit may be crushed, the heart may lie bleeding, the shadows of death may so thicken around us in the valley, that we are unable to proceed, and can only say, "Father, take my hand, and through the gloom lead safely home thy child."

Time alone restores. After a while the sorrow sleeps, but never dies; or it may ebb like the tide, but flows again as deep as ever. Communion with the Lord is the only healing balm for the wounded spirit, and communion with His word the true means for recovering power for service * And nothing will so naturally and sweetly take a sorrowing heart off itself as being interested in the salvation of others for the Lord's glory.

Nor is it otherwise with us now. Have our hearts been broken and bereaved by the stern, rude hand of death? Has his cold breath chilled our affections? What is the remedy? Resurrection. Yes; resurrection, that great restorer, not merely of "tired" but of ruined nature, fills up all blanks — repairs all breaches — remedies all ills. If the conscience be affected by a sense of sin, resurrection sets it at rest, by the assurance that the Surety's work has been fully accepted. If the heart be bowed down with sorrow, and torn by the ravages of death, resurrection heals, soothes and binds it up, by securing the restoration and reunion of all who have gone before; it tells us to "sorrow not as others which have no hope, for if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him" (1 Thess. 4:13-14). It is commonly thought that time fills up all the blanks which death has made in the affections; but the spiritual mind could never regard time, with its sorrowful vicissitudes, as a substitute for resurrection and its immortal joys. The poor worldling may, perhaps, find, in passing circumstances, something to fill up the void which death makes, but not so the Christian; to him, resurrection is the grand object: to that he looks as the only instrumentality by which all his losses can be retrieved, and all his evils remedied.

The words of your friends reach your ears, and perhaps leave you more hopeless and bewildered than before. His words will reach your soul and give you divine support for human props, and a comfort and peace that death cannot destroy, for His words reveal Himself, and He is more than all you need. Turn yourself about to Him; lift your tear-filled eyes to His; hide not your broken heart from His touch; tell Him the cause of your grief.

In the days of old we read of Jehovah that, "He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds" (Ps. 147:3). In order to heal the broken-hearted He became flesh, and shed His tears to dry ours, and broke His heart to bind up our hearts.

And Jesus is still the same — "The same yesterday, today, and for ever." In our sorrows, and when our loved ones are taken from us, we still learn that our only real and lasting comfort is found in bowing at His feet, and pouring out our sorrow in the presence of the One who once wept with these broken-hearted women.

You will admit that it must be blessed for the Lord to have His redeemed people at home, and that it must be blessed for them to be there with Him, for as in the new earth there will be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying nor any more pain, and all tears will be wiped from all eyes, so must it be now in the presence of the Lord. You have no doubt as to all this, but what of yourself? You have sorrow and tears enough, you have been left lonely and desolate; and what a desolator death is! You hear the words of your friends, and they are sympathetic words, and are spoken for your consolation, but how cold the warmest of them seem to be. You feel that they do not understand what this means to you. There is a certain comfort in their words but they do not go far enough. There is a depth within you that they cannot reach, and your sorrow lies in that unreachable depth; there is a secret chamber within your heart that the most intimate of your friends cannot enter, and it is in that very chamber that this sorrow of yours has taken up its abode. Can there be any blessedness for you? Yes, for the Lord Himself has said, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." And He will make good His own word, even to you. Your sorrow has made more room for Him in your life than ever there has been before; it has made you feel your need of Him as you never felt it before. He has never been far away from you. He is at your side now. He is waiting for you to admit Him into that secret chamber where your grief holds its sway. He would enter there that He might fill it with His own peace, the peace of His presence. He is the great Comforter, and He is this because He fully understands. Nobody else does. Your heart knows its own bitterness, and there are times when your best friends seem complete strangers to you, so little do they understand you and enter into your feelings, but it is not so with Him. He knows you through and through, He understands, and because He understands and knows all you are passing through, He can sympathize.

Think of broken-hearted Mary. She brought her sorrow to the feet of the Lord as He waited for her outside the town of Bethany. "If Thou hadst been here," she cried, "my brother had not died." Then she looked up into His face through her tears, and lo, JESUS WEPT. Was not she at that moment most blessedly comforted? She had known that He loved her before, but she had never known that He loved her like that. His tears were more eloquent than words, and she found that His sympathy was greater than her sorrow. He did not speak to her, but He kept close by her side, and you may be sure that it was true of her, then and there, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."

And why has that incident been given to us in the Gospel that unfolds for us the glory of the Son of God? For your sake. What He was for Mary, He is for you. You may realize that He who is the mighty God feels for you, that He enters into your grief, that He knows the aching in your stricken heart, and the silence in your bereaved home, and not only the silence of it but the shadow that has crept into every room of it, and that knowing all He desires to fill up your heart with His own comfort. He will not remove the sorrow as He did in Mary's case, but He will give you something greater than it — His own friendship and sympathy. He offers you the full knowledge of a love that death itself cannot spoil — His own love. He can make that love so real to you that you will discover that you can do without everybody and everything but Himself. Yes, neither father, mother, sister, brother, friend, husband, wife, houses, lands, are indispensable to us, they have their place in our natural lives, and their place is a God-given blessed place while it lasts, but He is our life and will be our life for ever; He is our joy unspeakable and full of glory: Without them we may live, but without Him we cannot.

Let all the sons and daughters of sorrow remember these things for the consolation of their sorrowing hearts. "God comforts those that are cast down." If we were never cast down, we should not know His precious ministry. A stoic does not need the comfort of God. It is worth having a broken heart to have it bound up by our most merciful High Priest.

Trust in Him: "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace" (John 16:33). Our circumstances may not change, our sorrows may not be removed; but if Christ is brought into our grief, we will be able to say with the psalmist: "You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance" (Ps. 32:7).

By drawing near to God in affliction, the will is subdued, and the heart consoled and encouraged. God Himself is revealed to the soul, and works by His grace; and in the sense of His presence we say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." And not only are we near to God, but we also open our hearts to Him. He would have us do so, for He is full of grace. He desires our confidence, not only that we may be subject to His will, but that we may present our cares to Him.

But it is most instructive to notice that relief is experienced as soon as the burden of his complaint is laid down before the Lord. Exercised souls will understand this. They know that the heart is eased and strengthened the moment the sorrow is told out into the ear of God. (See Philippians 4:6-7.) It is so with David; for no sooner has he implored the God of his salvation not to forsake him, than he turns round to declare his unshaken trust in the Lord: "When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." If all who are nearest and dearest (those upon whom he had the claim of the most intimate natural ties) should turn away from him, when thus utterly alone, the Lord would seize the opportunity of manifesting His favour. This is the Lord's way, as we see in the blind man in John's gospel. Cast out by all alike - in complete isolation - the Lord drew near, and revealed Himself to him as the Son of God. Blessed Lord! Thou lovest to comfort those who are cast down, and to display Thy love to those of Thine own, who, because of faithfulness to Thee, are rejected on every hand. (Compare Psalm 142:3). Two prayers follow - the first concerning the Lord's way, with a desire to be led in a plain path because of his enemies, who were watching, in the hope that he might go astray; and the second for deliverance from his enemies, because false witnesses had already risen up against him, and such as breathed out cruelty. (See Psalm 62:2-4.)

I have always felt that the first break in the family is more than all others … but Christ has come in where death was and given a life beyond it all. He calls us in gracious and tender love to live in that. He knows how to comfort — knows what death is far better than we do, because He is the resurrection and the life — has wept over it and suffered it. He will comfort you … with a comfort which, if it feels for death, death cannot touch.