With Each Stitch

I’ve broken my heart more than once.  In fact, I think if you could open my chest and get a real true picture of my heart you would see staples where each time someone lost my trust.  It would be wrapped in scotch tape from moments of unrequited love and held gingerly together by knots of twine in the places where the aches have leaked through.  We’ve all been in that place, crippled by broken hearts that seem to be barley beating.

Truth be told, I have found myself in that place more times that I’d like to admit.  I’ve been broken by boys, by things that may have never really been mine, and by ending in places I never hoped to find.  We have all been let down by loved ones and felt like someone was throwing us away with the garbage.  And in the moments of heaviness, where it’s a task to even swallow, I look down at the pieces that I’m sure will never be put back in place.

The first boy that broke my heart was the one who gave me my first kiss.  He first was my best friend and then I began wishing for something more.  It was my senior year of high school, a challenging year for me to say the least, and He was my best friend.  He was one year older and off to college for my final year at home, but he was still the last one I talked to at night before going to sleep and the first one I wanted to tell all about the details of my day.  When I began to harbor more than friendship feelings, we began to talk about becoming more.  Was it worth it, to risk such an amazing friendship?  Would it even work?  We pondered the thoughts and ended up with a decision to give it a shot. 

Now I had never been kissed and I had the mentality that I wanted it to be special.  I desired to spend it on someone worthwhile.  It was something that I respected myself for and equally found embarrassing.  There I was, age 18, about to graduate high school, and still without my first kiss.  While I wanted it to have meaning it wasn’t a fact I paraded around.  And then one weekend, while I was down visiting him at school, he took me to the beach and kissed me.  It was perhaps the single most awkward moment of my life.  I was nervous, okay terrified, and all in all it was a big fat fail.  Typical of me, I was over thinking the whole thing and to this day when I think of that moment I cringe and duck hoping that maybe it was just a bad dream.  Luckily, he was my best friend, we laughed, and vowed to try again, another day.

I returned home from the weekend and simultaneously stopped receiving any phone calls from him.  It was torturing and I wondered if my awkward kiss had scared him away.  Then on a Thursday night my phone rang.  All he had to say was that it was over.  Cut and dry, we were through.  Through?  But hadn’t we just started?  I felt cheated, robbed, and mostly betrayed.  My best friend was no longer my best friend but the boy who broke my heart.

That first night was the worse.  I cried, I cursed, and I begged for the pain to subside.  I gasped for air and when I caught a glimpse of my blotchy, tear stained face in the mirror, I cried again.  I thought that I would never be the same and believed I would never be whole again.

While that was the first boy who broke my heart, it wasn’t my first heartache.  Life has been filled with them.  Friendships have crumbled, dreams have been crushed, lives have been lost, and secrets have been told.  This world we live in is drenched with ways in which to break us.  Devastation lurks in the crevices of every day life.

They say that time heals everything and while the reality of that is overbearing, it is truth.  But I believe in a bit more.  I will take a stance and say that in time, it is He who heals all wounds.

In Psalm 147:3 it says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

He picks us off of the bathroom floor, wipes away the pool of tears and blood, and wraps our wounds.  In his arms, he swaddles our souls and kisses our foreheads.  Our God reminds us that His love heals and He bandages our skinned knees and bruised souls with grace and peace.  He makes space in time to bind our broken parts.


Life can happen to us.  It can knock us down, leave lumps in our throats, and drop us barefoot into a pile of our broken pieces.  But, we can take comfort and claim in faith that he will pick us up, remind us of our worth, and heal us of all of our ailments.  My heart may be battered but it is still beating. In the aftermath of every ache I can look down at the pieces and know that by His mercies He will make me whole.  Again and Again. With His skillful surgeon hands he stitches us back together, covering our incisions with His truth.   With each stitch, He heals our heartache.