He Breaks My Heart

One of my favorite songs has these incredibly powerful lyrics that seems to always be stuck in my mind. The song Hosanna says,

“Open up my eyes to the things unseen

Show me how to love like You have loved me

Break my heart for what breaks Yours

Everything I am for Your Kingdom’s cause”

And as I’m sitting here writing this, I can’t help but let the tears come to my eyes. This is a prayer that I pray all the time. I often ask the Father to open my eyes and to break my heart for what breaks His. In this season of life, since committing to going on the World Race, I have continuously asked Him to do this for me. “Why?” you may ask, and to be honest, I’m not completely sure why. Sometimes it is a hard thing to pray. I mean, it does sound kind of weird to ask someone to intentionally break your heart. But I know that He is trying to grow me and teach me something, so I’m choosing to trust Him in that, even though it is a hard and confusing thing to pray for. We live in a broken world, that is no secret by any means. So when I see what He sees, it absolutely breaks my heart. Sometimes it feels so heavy that I can’t help but cry tears of sorrow and pain. But, He reminds me that I can take comfort in knowing that I can cry out to Him in the pain and in doing so, He always shows me His bright and beaming light in the darkness.

This morning as I was scrolling through my camera roll (trying to delete some old photos to make room for the new ones to come, yay!) I stumbled upon photos that I had taken on a mission trip with my high school ministry, Club. There were so many photos of sweet, joyful & beautiful faces from the city of Ensenada, Mexico. As I looked back into those smiling faces, I couldn’t help but feel a pain in my heart as I remembered each of their stories. Behind their smiles, I could still see the hardship, poverty, loneliness, shame, pain and fear. I thought about how crazy it is that by even looking at a photo, I could feel physical pain in my heart. And even though it is probably only a fraction of what they are feeling, it is still so deep. I can’t even imagine ALL the heartbreak that our Father must feel for each and every one of us when we feel pain. 

Coming back home after training camp, I again experienced a lot of this heartbreak. It was extremely hard for me. I came home and I felt like all I could see was pain. Behind the smiles of the people surrounding me, I saw so much hurt and fear. Honestly, it terrified me. I just wanted to close my eyes and protect my heart. When I came back home, I didn’t want to see anyone for fear of crying in front of them and for fear of feeling all the heartbreak. And I’ll be real, I knew that probably not many people would understand why I couldn’t get the tears to stop flowing, so I was also risking looking like a little bit of a crazy person. But I couldn’t help it; their pain suddenly became my own pain too. At training camp I had again prayed that He would give me eyes to see things unseen and to break my heart for what was breaking His. It was all so overwhelming. There would be days when I just felt like all I was surrounded by was hurt and that there was no hope. But because He is so good and faithful, He has never left me alone in the pain. He has continuously reminded that He always shows up. He redeems us and is Healer. 

I wanted to share this little bit for a few reasons. The first being, yes sometimes I pray prayers that make no sense to me. But I believe that God puts them on my heart with a purpose even when I don’t know why. It’s hard. Seeing even just a fraction of the depth of pain in this world is incredibly heartbreaking. But I’ll keep praying that He breaks my heart for what is breaking His until He tells me otherwise. So it’s okay to pray big, small, hard, weird & confusing prayers. Second, I think that He has given me new eyes and a fragile heart for a reason. I believe that He will put these things to good use as I head out onto the mission field in only 22 days. I know this because of how He has already used these things in my time at home. Big praises to Him for a gift like this. Third, missions has always held a really special place in my heart. There is a sweet joy that comes from being able to love on others even though it is also hard to see the hurt. Please feel free to reach out and ask me more about missions and how He has grown my heart for it because I would love to share more (seriously!). Fourth, I would love if you would pray for strength over me. I know that this year will be challenging. It will be so hard to see some of the brokenness in places all over the world. I know that He is going to break my heart for what breaks His. It is one of the greatest gifts that He has given me, it really is. But, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t hard. Pray that I would always be reminded to turn to Him for comfort and strength and that I would always remember His power and promises and goodness. He moves mountains!!

I GO TO LAUNCH IN ONLY 18 DAYS. CRAZYYYY!!! That means you’ve gotta get yourselves ready for launch too, because guess what?? You’re on this journey with me!  

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your love, prayers & support. I am always reminded of the incredible goodness and provision of God when I get to see & experience the sweet ways that you people are cheering me on. 

-Elena  

I’m still working on a blog about all that I learned at training camp. I promise I haven’t forgotten about it!