Therefore, behold, I will allure her, I will bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfort to her. -Hosea 2:14

Worthless. That’s how I felt the moment he broke my heart. It took him 20 minutes, in the middle of an empty parking lot, to dismantle every ounce of confidence I had in regard to my value as a woman.

How can this really be happening? How could I have been so wrong? What is wrong with me?

I had never felt so faulty before, as if I had failed in my very role as a woman. In a single moment, I became unwanted, disposable, and forgettable to the very man I thought would protect me forever.  My heart felt shattered, and all I could hear were the lies telling me that I was a fool.

As the next couple of weeks went by I was forced to reconcile with the fact that I was now on the receiving end of a situation I had always pitied other girls for.

I broke down before God asking Him to heal me, to make me whole, to show me who He was through all of this brokenness, and to take away the feeling that I was worthless, that my value was stripped, and that all the words which had built up my womanhood and brought me a sense of fulfillment weren’t, in fact, a lie.

There’s this incredible aspect of our omnipresent God whom we are called to represent – He shows up. He shows up when your knees hit the floor, and He doesn’t come simply to remind you that you are loved, though that is more than we could ever ask for.

No, He shows up with fistfuls of promises, with bucketfuls of grace, and more comfort than any person on this earth could ever dish out to our wounded, tired, insatiable hearts.

Would you believe me if I told you that I have never learned a greater lesson on God’s value for my heart than I have during the times it has been broken?

Would you believe me if I told you that by God slamming the door shut on a relationship I had convinced myself was His will, He proved to me more than ever before just how valued and honored I am by Him?

He has been chasing after our hearts since the beginning of time, knocking on the vulnerable doors, begging for entrance.

Do you think God would allow us to settle for an incomplete version of His best for us in any aspect of this life?

I thought my heart was breaking, but I was so so wrong. My heart was not breaking. God was taking me away from that which would break it.

Our God is a healer. He is not the creator of broken things; He is not the designer of the incomplete, the failed, the left, the disheartened, the crushed, the shattered, the hopeless.

He is in the business of sparing and restoration.

I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in loving kindness and mercy; I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness, and you shall know the Lord.  -Hosea 2:19-20

Sometimes He leads us to the desert or to the wilderness in order to remove all the things attempting to steal our attention away from Him. He is jealous for our affection, and He will stop at no lengths to cut our ties with these half-baked versions of God’s best that offer us only a tainted version of what God has designed for us. He is vehement in defending our inherent value and will push past the intruders of our hearts in order to leave us completely alone with Himself, surrounded by nothing but His stillness and truth.

The desert is dry because we are left to completely surrender and rely on Him; we have no other options but Christ. It feels lonely and barren, but it is this wide-open solitude with God that allures us into His embrace. He draws us to the wilderness so that the only voice we hear is His: Oh, darling, don’t you see? Haven’t you sensed it? Do you not feel it?

He has been pleading for a chance with you.

He has been persistently, incessantly, without rest, and despite all the many times we have turned Him down, seeking us out. All these years I was waiting for a knight in shining armor to come along, sweep me off my feet, and whisper tender things of love to me.  It took my Rescuer unclenching and tearing away the claws of an incomplete form of companionship from the vessels that were being blocked from flowing His truth to me for me to have a full revelation that the same God I questioned was the very Knight who had been fending off all the “enemies” in my life I was too naïve to recognize.

He tenderly led me to a place where I was with only Him, and the words He spoke to me there defeated any love story I had ever heard:

For the Lord comforts Zion; he comforts all her waste places and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song. -Isaiah 51:3 (ESV)

For He who touches you touches the Apple of His eye…- Zech 2:8 (ESV)

God puts every tear we cry into His bottle (Psalm 56); He has engraved us into the palm of His hands (Isaiah 49); we are the apple of His eye (Zech 2); to Him we are a crown of glory, a royal diadem, delighted in, redeemed, SOUGHT OUT, not forsaken (Isaiah 62).

It is so difficult to face situations in this life that once offered us a sense of seeming value and later turn out to cause hurt and rob us of our sense of worth. These circumstances may whisper, then speak, then yell, then shriek lies until every last bit of truth is made inaudible by the pounding reverberation of how we have failed, how God has failed us, and how broken we feel.

During one of these times in my life, God spoke a powerful truth to me and caused me to say: “If I have to be lonely to recognize God’s love, then leave me alone, small inside of You, that I might be overwhelmed by it.”

If you feel broken by your circumstances, lonely, or worthless, then I encourage you to sit down with your Bible and ask God to show you His promises on your life, His value for you, and all the truths He has to offer.

Write these promises down, meditate on them, pray about them. You will find bits of truth laced inside of scripture that you may have never noticed before. Ask Him to speak to you of new things, of constant things, of His faithfulness.

He is a Restorer, He is the Author of new, He is a Rescuer, and He will not allow anything steal the one He fought so hard for since the beginning of time. He is a promise keeper, and He will stay true to you for eternity.

I encourage you to comment below any scriptures God has shown you that have reinforced His value on your heart and His love for you.

Be blessed today, and remember that He is always there when your knees hit the floor, and it is then that He gently scoops you up, whispers who you are in Him, and carries you to a place where you can be alone with Him and be washed over the by the grace-filled pouring of His love for you.