healing from heartbreak and heartache

this week, i have needed to focus a lot of attention and energy to healing.

there has been, recently, a resurgence of my heart’s flowing wintry river of grief. i have felt as if i am in the middle of an extremely painful furnace of sanctification. and while i’ve felt scathed, scalded and charred,  i have also experienced the wonder of not being consumed by those flames, and can feel them purifying me. in this blaze, i am miraculously healing.

part of this healing is choosing to claim peace over understanding. my heart and mind cannot understand all the complexities that have brought me to this great hurt, but:
the peace of god, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds…
-philippians 4:7

yes, there are so many things i don’t understand. but there are few things i feel i can believe for sure. and the peace of those things passes understanding and allows the flames to refine rather than consume.
**first, i believe that god is aware of me, and that he will continue to watch over me and he won’t let the good get away. i believe in redemption – that if i continue to strive to be golden hearted and lean into the sanctification no matter its connected pain, all the things that seem so wrong to me now will be made right. i believe, even though it’s so hard for me to imagine or conceptualize, that there are better things ahead for me. somehow, quite incredulously it feels now, i believe that, deep into my bones.
**second, i believe that love is always beautiful and good, and never wasted. i will not attempt to forget, erase or discount any of the beautiful, sacred, romantic, magical, lovely experiences i have had preceding my broken heart. instead, i will always cherish them as mine and continually strive to glean lessons and memories and goodness from them. i will not allow a heartbreaking destination to negate in any way the wondrous, spectacular journey. no matter the ache it has caused, i am so very, very grateful for for this wild ride, and its good will always outweigh its bad.
**third, i believe i can choose hope and refuse bitterness. this has taken some quite grueling work for me (for a few weeks i could hardly see a baby or hear of a marriage without welling up with a yearning that cut deep and sore; i have been tempted to feel angry or jealous or cheated or defeated), but i believe i have the power to decide to triumph with optimism rather than wither with spite.
**lastly {and probably most passionately, as i have expressed before – i really have to remind myself over and over}, i believe in beauty for ashes. i believe, amazingly, that all of this will be worth it, and that one day i will be truly healed by that peace that will no longer need to pass understanding, because i will understand – if not all, enough.
what, therefore, may seem now to be mere unconnected pieces of tile will someday, when we look back, take form and pattern, and we will realize that god was making a mosaic. for there is in each of our lives this kind of divine design, this pattern, this purpose that is in the process of becoming, which is continually before the lord but which for us, looking forward, is sometimes perplexing.
-neal a. maxwell, but for a small moment (such a good talk)

every morning now i tell myself with all the conviction i can muster: i am going to have a really awesome life. great, great, great love is ahead.