Break my heart for what breaks yours. Everything I am for Your Kingdom’s cause.
An old worship song. One I haven’t listened to in a long while. Yet one line keeps going through my head. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Breakmyheartforwhatbreaksyours. Breakmyheartforwhatbreaksyours.
I’ve thought so much these last months that I don’t belong here. Not long term. Move to another city. Start afresh. Lexington isn’t my place. There’s too much to fear here. Too much humiliation. Explanations. Not to mention unfulfilled dreams. Ideas and theories never fully developed. Many questions. My counselor agreed. Others did too. Sure. When the opportunity arises. When the kids are comfortable with it. Move on.
But I thought about bullet holes in houses. In my town. And the fact that no child should have to live in a house with bullet holes. Which is part of the reason my coworkers and I do what we do.
I went to my workplace’s annual fundraising banquet. For the first time in a year, I was in a room with over 400 people. Seeing some of them for the first time since my marriage ended. People who know me. Knew us. At least one I’m fairly certain has indulged in some gossip. Yet it was a joyous event. A personal overcoming moment. A realization that I can participate in celebrating the work I’ve been a part of. I don’t have to run and hide. I don’t have to only expose myself to the safe people in my life.
I went to a conference. I was with friends. My work family. And the lyrics came back. Break my heart. For what breaks yours. The reality that things happening right in my neighborhood, right on my street, sometimes right in front of me, break God’s heart.
The closing words from the leader who orchestrated the conference. Don’t settle. We don’t have to settle. Words which obviously were not planned. Not what he, despite being an intelligent and articulate speaker, prepared to share beforehand. He told us this fact.
Call it ironic. Funny. God’s hand. Whatever you want. But just about a week before those words were spoken out loud by the conference speaker, a friend spoke those same words directly to me. Don’t settle. You don’t have to settle.
I’m not sure about the average person, but I’m the type that if I hear basically the same random thing spoken to me from two different, completely unrelated sources, I take the time to evaluate.
So I put them together. The song lyrics and the settle thing. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Don’t settle. Break my heart for what breaks yours. Don’t settle.
Don’t settle for a safer life. Don’t settle for ease. Don’t settle for putting a calling on the shelf because it’s going to have to play out a bit differently. Don’t settle because this isn’t what you bargained for. Don’t settle in relationships. Don’t settle. Simply because the same things still break your heart. The bullet ridden house and the woman walking down the street, looking to make some cash for drugs.
It’s like my own little sermon I’ve preached to myself inside my head over the last few days.
Don’t settle because today, this moment, I belong where I am. That, despite all the other changes, has not changed. Will it eventually? Someday? Maybe. But as of right now, it has not.
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Song lyrics are from Hosanna, by Hillsong. The conference I attended was The BLVD conference in Atlanta.
Upon a Sunny Day 