Been There, Felt That

I would never willingly choose heartbreak. 

In fact, there is a whole list of emotions that I would never willingly choose… sadness, rejection, betrayal, pain, isolation, and loneliness to name a few. Like, if someone came up to me and told me a situation I was pondering or a relationship I was entering was guaranteed to end in heartbreak, I would swerve so fast the other direction to avoid the future heartbreak and pain. 

I would never willingly choose heartbreak. 

As I was talking to Jesus about a recent heartbreak in my life, I asked him if he ever experienced heartbreak, or if he could even empathize with my hurting human heart. I told him that I knew he experienced pain on the cross, but could he really understand my fickle human broken heart issues. And in the most loving voice, I heard Jesus tell me that there is not a single emotion that I will ever experience that He did not willingly choose to walk through during his time on earth. 

He told me that he knows the deep pain of being wanted one moment and then rejected the next. He reminded me that the week before the crowd was shouting to have him crucified, they were praising him and worshiping as their king, and that he could understand my pain I was feeling at that moment. 

He told me that he could empathize with the feelings of loneliness and rejection, and that he remembers the loneliness and ultimate rejection he felt on the cross when the father turned his face from him. 

He reminded me that he is very familiar with feelings of betrayal and that he could empathize with my feelings because he felt when everyone He loved and cared for turned their back on him to save themselves. 

He reminded me that he experienced loss, pain, and grief… in fact, he purposely chose to experience those feelings. He knew he would raise his friend Lazarus from the dead, but in the most beautiful moment of humanness, Jesus chose to sit in the pain of loss, and grief before performing his miracle, and …”Jesus wept”. 

He willingly chose grief. He willingly chose pain. He willingly chose sadness. He willingly chose betrayal. He willingly chose isolation. He willingly chose heartbreak. 

Why would He do that? What would make someone crazy enough to willingly walk into those painful emotional experiences? 

There is only one thing to possess someone to do something crazy like that.
​ 
Love. 


Jesus loved us so much that he not only came to earth to save our souls for eternity, but to provide us with an eternal sense of comfort and peace while here on earth as well. Jesus could have just come to earth as a superhero, and made a way for us to amend our sins with God, and peaced out.

 But instead, he chose to become fully human, and live the entire human experience- including the wide range of emotions that we all experience over our lifetime. There is not a single emotion that I could ever experience that the Lord has not experienced and felt on a deep and personal level. Because of that, I know that the Lord not only cares about my heart as the one who created it, but also as someone who has lived through the ups and downs of life, and can empathize with every hard emotion might be feeling. I can bring him every ugly and tough emotion and lay it at his feet, knowing that he remembers what it was like to feel that,knowing that he will never tell me I am being dramatic or too emotional,  and confidently wait for him to embrace me with loving arms that can hold me like no one else can. 

Jesus willingly walked into heartbreak, so that I never have to experience heartbreak alone.