On the race, one of my biggest prayers was for God to break my heart for what breaks his. I wanted to see people how God saw them and to bear their burdens with them, lighten their load. Over the course of the past 6 months, I have felt sad for people, I have seen bad situations but never was I at the point of heartbreak, never did I feel an ache in my heart that wouldn’t go away.
For the past week, my team and I were teaching bible lessons at a local high school. We could teach on whatever we wanted, there weren’t many limitations besides it having to come out of the bible. I taught a series of lessons of who God is. God is a Provider, God is the God of Second Chances, God is Love etc.
In one of my classes there was an 11th grade student who heard me teach a lesson on God being the God of second chances. Basically I told the students God can forgive you for any wrong you have done; nothing is too big for God to forgive and nothing is too small to ask God forgiveness for.
I did not know this girl was in the class until she came up to me one night and asked if we could chat. I said yes absolutely we can talk and she began to tell me her story.
She had been through some really tough situations. When she was younger, she tried to take her life multiple times, but nothing worked. She would pray to God to take her from this earth, for him to free her from her pain. She struggled with depression most of her childhood. She told me the darkness in her life was engulfing her and she found no joy, joy was absent. She did not feel like she could go to anyone or tell anyone of what she was going though. She was scared of the devil attacking her so most nights were full of sleeplessness and despair.
My heart broke for her. She couldn’t have been more than 16 years old. I didn’t know why she was in such darkness, or why she was feeling these things, but I didn’t have to. God was breaking my heart for her.
As I’m listening to her talk, my heart is aching to help her, to rescue her from drowning in the darkness of life. I just couldn’t imagine a small child having to deal with that, having to go through situations like that at such a young age in life. I imagined her being in despair for so long that she didn’t have any energy left to keep fighting. She was being shut down so much that she did not think life was worth it, she wanted to end it to escape the pain.
When our conversation ended, I started listening to music, trying to comprehend and process what I had just heard. My heart was still breaking for this girl I just met and barely knew. Then I remembered my prayer, for God to break my heart for what breaks his. If my heart was breaking for her and that meant God’s heart is breaking for her too.
God was telling me that his love will save her and his love is proud to be seen with her. He said her heart aches so deeply, but she will rise up out of the ashes and move mountains. He told me he has big and mighty plans for her and that just like her, her story will move mountains.
God’s heart breaks for this small girl ten times more than my heart and his heart breaks for every single one of us. God rejoices with us and he weeps with us. God feels so deeply for all his children and loves them so much. Even though I will probably never see her again, I know she is in God’s hands and she knows it too. I was saddened that our conversation might have been the first and the last one we have, but I will never forget her. I will one day see her in heaven.
