Women of Excellence

To the Girl with Shattered Dreams

I always told myself that I wasn’t going to write about relationships or singleness on my blog.  It seemed like a lot of other ladies blogged about relationships and had enough wise things to say that I didn’t need to say anything.  But as I tried to wrestle through writing a different blog post and no words would come, I felt that it was time to be vulnerable with what the Lord has been teaching me lately as I’ve walked through the heartbreak of an ended relationship. 

Whether you’re walking through an ended friendship or an ended romantic relationship, this is for you.  It’s for me.  It’s for the brokenhearted, those whose dreams have been shattered.  These are the lessons the Lord has been teaching me, and I pray it can encourage someone who is also experiencing heartbreak. 

1: Just because it ended doesn’t mean the relationship was a failure.  It is not wrong to have gone through a breakup.  I had believed the lie that if I did everything right, I shouldn’t ever experience a breakup.  But this type of thinking is prosperity gospel thinking.  God is not a genie in a bottle; there is not a magic formula that says if you do such and such steps, God will do what you want.  If we look at the book of Job, we see a man who was righteous before God and went through horrible tragedy and lost everything.  His friends believed in prosperity gospel, that the righteous should never experience problems so Job must have sinned, otherwise his life should still be good.  However, that was not the case.  We know from the beginning of the book (see Job 1-2) that Satan had told the Lord that Job would deny God if God took away all the blessings He had given Job, so the Lord allowed Satan to attack Job (only within God’s limits) in order to test Job.  Job, however, never learned why the Lord allowed all these trials.  God only told Job that He was sovereign; He knew all things and Job did not (see Job 38-42).  Maybe you feel like I did; you looked back on your relationship, questioning every little detail of what you could have done differently, but you can’t find any reason for why things ended.  You feel like a failure, like you wasted your time.  But there are two successful ends to a romantic relationship – you get married, or you realize this isn’t someone you want to commit the rest of your life to and part ways.  Both outcomes are right.  In my case, I didn’t initiate the breakup, but with some time I was able to see that the end of the relationship was for my good; that man wasn’t someone I would want to commit the rest of my life to.  Did it feel like a waste of time?  A little bit, but I have to keep reminding myself that deciding not to marry someone is also a successful outcome.  If you are facing an ended friendship, it may feel a bit more messy.  But there does come a point where it is okay to part ways.  Whether you have differences in beliefs that cannot be reconciled or you simply have less in common than before, it is not wrong for you to drift apart.   

While the end of relationships is not wrong, I want to remind us that the heartbreak we are experiencing is not a part of God’s original intent for His creation.  God created a perfectly good world, where there was no pain or sorrow.  Sin marred our world, and it mars our relationships.  But one day in eternity, all our pain and tears will be gone (Rev. 21:4).  We will walk through more pain and heartbreaks during this life, but we can take comfort knowing that our God is still good, and one day He will take away all our pain when we enter into eternity. 

2: Grieving what you have lost is okay.  Like I said above, we weren’t intended to go through these types of heartbreak.  And the pain you’re feeling is real and valid; you’re losing a friendship—memories that were once happy are tinged with pain or even entirely bitter.  Your dreams for the future have been shattered.  You may even feel like you don’t know what to dream anymore.  I want to say I am so sorry for your pain.  I didn’t know how much a breakup would hurt; I didn’t expect to feel like I was grieving a death.  But it is a death—a death of friendship, hopes, and dreams.  And it is okay to grieve. 

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

The Lord will be with you in grief.  He is near.  He is not afraid of your pain. 

You have taken account of my wanderings; Put my tears in Your bottle. Are they not in Your book? Psalm 56:8

The Lord sees every tear we cry.  He doesn’t forget our tears; instead, He collects them, records them.  He is not afraid of our pain.

Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us. Selah. Psalm 62:8

Take your grief to the Lord; He can bear it.  He is not ashamed of your grief.  He knows it will take time to process, to heal.  There is no one-size-fits-all grieving process, and that is okay.  Just keep going back to your heavenly Father and let His arms be your comfort. 

3: God is sovereign over your story. After my breakup, one of my best friends said to me, “I don’t know why the Lord has allowed this in your life, but I know He is good so I will trust that this is for your best.”  That reminder of God’s sovereignty was just what I needed.  In the life of Joseph, we see life dreams shattered.  He goes from being the favored son, having had dreams that one day his family would bow down to him, to being a slave to being a prisoner.  If anyone could question what God was doing, it would be Joseph.  How would the prophetic dreams God had given him come true when he was a forgotten prisoner, accused of a crime he didn’t commit?  But God was sovereign and put Joseph into a position of power when Egypt, and all the surrounding world, needed him.  God had turned what was meant for evil (Joseph’s brothers selling him into slavery) into the salvation of many people.  You may feel like you’re in the depths of your own prison, forgotten and lonely.  But the Lord has not and will never forget you.  You are not alone.  One day, whether in this life or in eternity, we will see how God’s sovereign hand was moving in our stories.  God will not let this pain go to waste. 

4: Your heart will heal. It may seem impossible right now.  You may be changed by your heartbreak.  But healing will come. 

He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, Psalm 30:11

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

God will be your comfort.  Healing may not come as fast as you wish, but He will mend your heart.  That first month after my breakup, it felt impossible to heal.  Six months later, I still have times of grief, but I have felt the Lord’s comfort through His Word and through the encouragement of my family and friends.  He has not left me, and I am overwhelmed by the love He has poured out on me during my pain.  Trust the Lord to heal your brokenness.

5: The Lord is your protector.  This is a more personal lesson from my breakup, so it might not apply to you.  The Lord made it clear to me that through my breakup, He was protecting me and standing up for me in the midst of confusing and hurtful circumstances. 

“I love You, O Lord, my strength.” The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, And I am saved from my enemies. Psalm 18:1-3

6: You don’t have to tell everyone what happened.  In fact, you shouldn’t.  Early on, the Lord convicted me that I didn’t need to share with everyone why my breakup happened.  I wanted to; I wanted everyone to know that I was hurting.  I wanted revenge.  But I am so thankful the Lord stayed my lips from spewing words that didn’t need spread.  Yes, I shared my story with some, but with most the Lord prompted me to just say that things didn’t work out.   

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18:21

Our words hold so much power.  James 3 tells us that our tongue is like a rudder that guides the entire ship.  We must be so careful to guard our words so that we are not spreading rumors or gossip, and that we are not trying to pit people against one another, especially within the body of Christ.  Don’t hinder your witness just because someone else hurt you.  Choose the narrow way. 

7: Forgiveness is a journey.  How I would love for forgiveness to be one-and-done!  Instead, I forgive today, and tomorrow have to forgive again.  And sometimes I’m forgiving not just the people involved in my hurt, but others who say careless words about my breakup.  Forgiveness is not easy.  But it is commanded of us.  We have been forgiven much by our Lord, so we can forgive others as well, by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

I read the book Forgiving What You Can’t Forget, and I loved how in the book, Lisa Tyrkurst talked about how our emotions may not be ready to forgive, but we can choose forgiveness and trust the blood of Jesus to cover what our emotions can’t handle. 

Something that greatly convicted me in the area of forgiveness was an Instagram post that said that if we have been hurt by those within the church, we must remember that one day we will be worshipping with them before the throne of God.  Therefore, we should desire their good.  When I first heard that, I’m ashamed to say that I did not want to consider seeing those who had hurt me in eternity.  But the Lord has worked on my heart, and taught me to pray for the good of those who have hurt me, and then to let it go. 

On a practical note, when you are struggling with forgiveness, release your pain to God, and then start praying for someone you know who needs Jesus.  The enemy is working hard to keep us bitter; choose to fight against bitterness by directing your thoughts away from your pain and onto serving someone else through prayer. 

8: Some questions won’t have answers, so give them to God.  My relationship was long-distance, so there was a lot of unanswered questions about what was really going on.  It’s easy for me to speculate, but at the end of the day, I don’t know, and I won’t know.  Instead of allowing the unanswered questions to eat away at my mind, I must give them to God again and again.  I’ve come to rest in knowing that I won’t know everything, but God does, and that is enough. 

9: You can hold your head up.    

¹⁵ so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, Philippians 2:15

I spent a lot of time praying and trying to figure out what I did wrong that would’ve led to this breakup.  I asked my family over and over what I did wrong.  Was I blind to something?  What did I miss?  But the Lord and my family were clear—this wasn’t on me.  Were there things I could’ve done better, things I learned from for the future?  Yes.  But overall, I know I can hold my head up.  I did everything the Lord asked of me in the situation, and I can rest in that. 

10: Don’t stop loving big.  Don’t stop trusting.  My dad has told me multiple times it is better to have loved and lost than to never love at all.  At first I told my dad he was wrong, but, like usual, I’ve learned he is right.  Maybe you’re like me and when you love, you love big.  And when you love big, you tend to get hurt more often.  It’s tempting to give up, to build walls and push people away.  Please don’t.  I felt like becoming a hermit after my breakup, but luckily my mom told me to call one of my best friends and tell her what had happened the week of my breakup.  She cried with me and listened and shared Scripture with me.  So many other good friends have showed up and supported me, but it required me intentionally keeping my walls down.  If you love big, please know it is a gift.  We need more people in the world like you who are willing to risk big love.  Keep pouring into others, keep being vulnerable, keep showing up for others.  I know it’s hard, I know it’s lonely sometimes.  But you are so needed, and the Lord is working through your big love.  He will help you to keep loving big and to learn to trust again. 

I hope these lessons, however messy they are, can encourage you in some way.  Know you are in my prayers, dear sisters.  The Lord is near, your stronghold, your comfort. 

With love,

Kelsey