Glass Heart

Written January 22nd 2009

It lay on the floor, shattered into a thousand pieces. How had this happened? Who could have been so careless with such a delicate piece of work? Did they not realize what it was they had held in their hands?

As I stared at the multiple pieces of my delicate heart, tears rolled down my cheeks, and I was devastated. How could I ever put it back together? I reached down to gently pick up some of the pieces, and doubts that I would ever be able to love again ran through my mind. Unending tears began to fall and land on the shattered glass urrounding me.

That’s when I heard His voice and felt the warmth of His arms around me. “Beautiful one,… why are you crying? What has happened to your heart?” His presence almost seemed to bring more pain, but I knew why. I was ashamed. My heart was supposed to have been for Him. He had created it for me to love and adore Him, and I had carelessly given it to another. In that moment I wanted so desperately to put all those pieces back together and hand Him my heart. So I tried with everything in me. I thought if I applied resentment it might make some of the pieces stick. Then I thought maybe if I was a little bitter it would hold even more. The only result I got was a mess that kept falling apart. I was broken. I was broken beyond anything I would be able to fix. In abandonment to my weakness I broke even further before my one true prince and wept. As he held me in his arms, I felt a tear that was not my own. It fell upon my cheek and tingled with warmth. It must have fallen onto the shattered glass surrounding us, because I suddenly felt something inside of me stir. The love of my Savior had touched my heart. He felt everything I was feeling and was weeping with me. I watched him kneel over the shattered pieces and pick them up with such tenderness. As His tears fell one by one, the pieces of my heart began to fit perfectly back together. This was His masterpiece, and He was the only one that knew where each piece fit together.

I realize now that though brokenness is one of the most painful experiences we go through in life, it can also be the result of our most treasured memories with our prince. I am grateful that my heart was broken because I was able to see what was inside. Lying among all the glass, I saw things in my heart that I had been hiding for a long time. I saw areas that I had become cold and calloused. When my heart had broken, all those things inside my heart were exposed and staring straight at me. I would have continued to walk around with places in my heart would have been kept from my full potential to love, trust, and adore.

In that moment when my Savior kneeled over my broken heart, I was so embarrassed for Him to see all of those ugly spots that had been in my heart. I didn’t want him to know what I had been hiding inside so long. But He didn’t seem to care. He just kept placing the pieces of my heart back together, and left everything else. I started to wonder if He saw what I saw lying there on the floor.

When he was done, he turned to me and held out his hands. There inside, was the most perfect looking heart. It was pure and clear. I reached into His hands to hold my new heart, and I felt something, the scars in His hands. I looked into His eyes and he said: “That is why your heart is pure and clear”. I don’t see what you see. I only see the pure parts of your heart.” The tears began to flow once more, but this time it was from unspeakable joy. My heart had been broken and I had felt pain, but I had been given a gift greater than I could ever imagine. I looked at my heart a little closer and something caught my eye. Then I realized exactly what it was,… a small tear trapped inside. I had the mark of my one true prince placed in my heart to remind me of His faithfulness, undying love, and ability to heal. He had taken all the spots I was so ashamed of and replaced them with a simple reminder of His tenderness and love.