Healing for the brokenhearted

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Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...Image via Wikipedia
Are you brokenhearted? Has something happened in your life - a calamity or catastrophe, a relational earthquake, an astonishing loss? Psalm 147:3 has a word for you: "The Lord heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Isn't that encouraging? Isn't it encouraging to know that your heavenly father personally intervenes to bring healing and help to you in the middle of your struggle?
Well, if that's encouraging, v 4 should make it even more so: "He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names."
How is this more encouraging, you ask? Because it's the verse right after v 3! It's as if the psalmist is saying, "As powerful as the Lord is to name and number the stars, so powerful is he to heal your brokenheartedness and bind up your wounds." It's the ever-famous "how much more than" argument! If your heavenly father is powerful enough to name and number the stars, how much more able is he to heal your heart and comfort you in the midst of whatever you're facing?
But don't look to creation alone to assure you that he will comfort and encourage you in your pain - look to the cross. Jesus became your broken heartedness to give you his comfort. He bore your wounds so that you would never have to! And knowing this, you can be confident that today, right in the middle of what you're going through, he is able and willing to comfort and encourage you in ways beyond imagination.

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